Frozen Forgiveness
by blackknght
Summary: Hans was stopped from seizing Arendelle's throne by deception for now. Yet he is unstoppable in his desire for a throne even at the cost of betraying those who stand by him. Will Elsa, Anna and crew be able to stop him? Will those he betrays be able to forgive him for the treachery?
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

In the universe there are three primal forces: anger, fear, and love. These forces intertwine with each other much in the same way that the aurora borealis twists and turns in the night sky in the great white north. Each of the primal forces can be used for good or evil. Yet there is a fourth human force. This force is much greater than any of the others. This primal force can be triggered by fear or love but never anger. Command of this force requires more strength and courage than most humans could ever forge up. Yet the ability to use this force is in all of us. The fourth human force is forgiveness and of all of the human forces it alone is the most powerful. For forgiveness can bring peace to warring nations. Forgiveness can heal tortured souls. Forgiveness can bring peace to multitudes of people.

For all the power of forgiveness, that force can be blocked by anger. Unlike all the other primal human forces, anger is an all-consuming force. Like a fire that is out of control, anger eventually consumes and destroys all that contains it. Just as anger can block the power of forgiveness, forgiveness can block the power of anger. Ever locked in eternal conflict anger and forgiveness constantly conflict with each other.

The night was cloudless and the sky was alive with colors. Blues, reds and greens were constantly shifting in the sky in a brilliant display of colors. Behind the colors were the stars shining brightly. The ground was capped in a bright freshly fallen snow. Something rare was about to happen tonight. In fact it was so rare that only one person knew about it. Grand Pappi was watching the night sky intently when Bulda rolled up behind him.

"The night sky is really active tonight," Bulda said.

Grand Pappi didn't say anything. Instead he was focusing on the intense display of colors in the sky.

"The primal forces are on the move again," Grand Pappi said, "Something is about to happen I have only seen once before."

"And what might dat be?" Bulda asked.

"Two of the primal forces of nature are about to impact magic among us," Grand Pappi said gravely. "When the primal forces of human nature strike, we must beware," he added.

The light show above Bulda and Grand Pappi intensified with a particular concentration of red and blue. To most people, the colors would be beautiful. To Grand Pappi, the colors showed an occurrence that had not happened in generations.

In two separate castles separated in very distant lands, women were in labor. The force of fear descended on one castle and imbued one child with the voice of fear. This child would become Queen Elsa of Arendelle. Her story would become very well known. It was also well known that the force of Love would imbue her little sister with the power of love so strong to overcome fear.

In the other castle the force of anger would descend. However anger would play tricks this evening. Even Grand Pappi's wise eyes could not see what was about to happen for all would be deceived. The woman in the second castle would give birth two identical twins. Anger would give one twin the voice of anger. For the second twin, the anger would imbue with powerful latent magic. Once all was done, the lights left and the sky returned to the normal dancing and brilliant colors in the sky. Only years after the fact would people understand how powerful a trick that anger played that night.

**Five Years Later**

"Erik!" Leif shouted.

The young prince was now running through the courtyard of the castle pursued by his older brothers.

"Come back here you freak!" shouted one of the older brothers.

Leif was both scared and crying. This was not the first time that his older brothers had decided to terrorize Leif. Erik and Leif were twins and were favorite targets for their older brother. Leif was now at a full run heading to where he thought that Erik was standing. His eyes were full of terror. Right behind were two of his older brothers in full pursuit. Leif was fairly fleet of foot and could keep ahead fairly well, but he was definitely getting tired. At first Leif found a group of barrels to hide behind.

"Come out, come out wherever you are you little freak!" the older princes shouted.

Prince Leif just stood as quietly as he could to avoid his older brothers. Despite his best efforts though, his brothers started to thrown barrels around and eventually spotted him.

"There he is!" one of the princes shouted.

Leif immediately took off for a hay wagon that was located beside the stables. He wouldn't make it. He almost made it to the wagon when one his brothers caught up to him and grabbed him by the collar. Leif knew he was in trouble.

"Erik!" he yelled again.

"Don't bother yelling for that freak again!" the brother yelled.

"Yeah, he won't hear you!" shouted another brother as the pummeling began.

For the next several minutes Leif would be pummeled pretty badly by his brothers.

"That's what you get for being a freak!" shouted one of his brothers as the pummelling continued.

"ENOUGH!" came a shout loud enough to be heard over the din of punches being thrown.

The older brothers looked up as did Leif. By now Leif had a bloody nose and a black eye. He looked as if he had been run over by a herd of horses. Even though his bruised and swollen eyes, Leif could tell from the voice that the other person yelling was Erik.

"Well, well…" said one of the princes, "Look who showed up. It is the master freak himself."

"That is enough of the taunting, Canute," Erik replied angrily.

Erik's temper was infamous. The older princes knew what they were doing. Leif was Erik's identical twin. While Erik had the temper, Leif was more laid back but certainly looked just like Erik.

"What are you going to do about it?" Canute sneered back.

"Let Leif go NOW!" Erik replied with his temper increasing ever more.

"No!" Canute shouted angrily and before turning to resume pummeling Leif.

By now, Erik's anger was continuing to build. Erik quickly clenched his fists until they felt like they were going to explode. Then he released the fists and in the palm of his hands appeared two fireballs.

"LET HIM GO!" Erik shouted his voice full of fury.

The older princes were still pummeling on Leif when the first fireball slammed into the hay wagon quickly catching the hay on fire. The boys immediately turned to look at what happened when the second fireball slammed exploded into by their feet. That fireball quickly caught the straw that was on the ground by their feet on fire. The older boys quickly dropped Leif and they ran. Meanwhile the hay wagon was now completely engulfed in flames. The fire alarms were quickly being sounded. Erik quickly ran up to his brother and grabbed him.

"It is time we get out of here, brother!" Erik yelled.

Erik supported his brother but his brother will still dazed by his pummeling and had now two swollen black eyes so he could barely see where he going. Leif was definitely slowing Erik down. In the meantime a bucket brigade was quickly forming around the two princes and were now fighting the fires.

"Get out of here Erik and Leif!" shouted one of the men on the bucket brigade.

"We are trying!" Erik shouted back.

By now the hay wagon was completely engulfed. Not only that but the straw on the ground was clearly burning from the second fireball. There was some concern by those on the fire brigades about the fire reaching the power magazine if it wasn't contained quickly enough. The bucket brigade would eventually get the fire under control, but it would take several more hours before the fire would be completely extinguished. By now the older princes had already reported what had apparently happened. Of course they left out the chasing and pummeling of Leif conveniently enough.

King Henriken brought his sons in front of him.

"Care to explain to me what happened?" the king asked sternly.

"That freak threw fireballs at us and nearly killed us!" Canute replied angrily.

"And Canute and the three older brothers were beating Leif," Erik sneered back.

"Enough!" the king shouted.

King Henriken could see that Prince Leif had taken a beating. Although the swelling was done, he had two black eyes.

"Who beat him?" the king asked with a fair degree of anger in his voice.

None of the princes answered.

"Whose idea was it to beat him?" the king asked again. This time he asked more impatiently.

When no one would answer him again, the King assumed that all four of the older princes were responsible for the beating of Leif.

"Since none of you will admit to who did that, you will all be punished for Leif's beating. I will deal with you shortly. You are to remain in your rooms until I can deal with you. Now you four may leave. Erik and Leif, you are to remain here," the king commanded.

"Erik, I know what happened," King Henriken started.

"Father, they were beating on Leif," Erik began.

"I know that they were and they were punished. But the power you have Erik is dangerous. There is a reason I have to watch out when I send you out Erik," the king interrupted.

"People will fear you. They will fear that you will kill them. In fact, you caused a considerable amount of damage today and in fact threatened to blow up the power magazine," the king stated sternly. "People will talk, Erik. Whether you want them to or not, they will talk and they will fear you. The more that people fear you, the more the anger will consume you. It is very important not just to you but everyone you love that you control your anger. I know that it was you who threw those fireballs because I saw it," the king started.

"I am sorry," Erik began.

"Leif, you are the identical twin brother of Erik," the king once again interrupted. "You don't have the same active abilities as Erik, but because you are identical twins your powers seem to be more latent than Erik's. You are letting yourself be manipulated and are also manipulating your brother's ability as well. You should be standing up for yourself rather than letting your brother do all your fighting for you." his father scolded. "I shouldn't be sitting here seeing you with two black eyes," the king added.

"Yes father," Leif answered.

"Leif and Erik, I must take actions to protect both you and the rest of the castle. I am isolating the two of you to your own private wing of the castle. From now on until Erik can better control his anger and Leif can stand up for himself, I am keeping you in that wing of the castle," King Henriken stated.

And with that statement the discussion of the day's events came to a close. Going forward Erik and Leif would be staying by themselves in the castle.

"Come on, Leif," Erik told this brother. "Let's get you back to your room and get you cleaned up."

Leif didn't argue with his brother and quickly followed him to his new room. Once back to their new room, Erik took the time to care for Leif and his bruised and swollen eyes.

"Thanks Erik," Leif said sadly.

"Don't worry about it," Erik replied. "Those guys are more scared of me then you."

"Why do you think that they choose to beat me up? I can't control fire," Leif complained.

"But you are my twin, Leif," Erik replied. "You might not be able to control fire now, but you never know."

"Still it seems unfair," Leif replied.

Servants would quickly move their stuff from their old room to their new room over the next several days. While the two brothers might have to remain isolated from their other brothers, they would definitely have each other.

King Henriken was't sure how to handle his son. Erik had abilities that no one else in the kingdom had. If word got out about Erik's abilities or the fact that his identical twin might have the same powers, it could destroy his kingdom. The isolation of the boys from the rest of their brothers would at least help contain the problem. But it couldn't be a cure. Henriken decided to walk in his garden. He had just started to walk in his garden when Henriken heard soft footsteps coming up behind him. He turned around to see Queen Annika coming up behind him.

"You must have a heavy heart today Henrik," his wife said.

"I keep thinking about the twins," the king said. "I want all of my boys to be tough. The kingdom expects that of their princes."

"Yet the kingdom would fear Erik. They would fear that he could destroy the entire kingdom," Annika replied. "Henrik, what happened today should not have happened. Our boys should love each other. Our twins are already going to be feared by the kingdom. If their brothers do not love them, who does?"

Henriken thought about what his wife was saying. "I want to stand by my sons, but what is the best way to help them?"

"I wish I could give you the answer, darling," his wife replied.

"Maybe it is time for us to visit the trolls. They seem to understand magic a lot more than I do. Besides I wouldn't mind spending a few days visiting my good friend King Gustav of Arendelle," the king said.

Annika thought the idea was splendid. If anyone could help, the trolls would be in the best position to do so. It certainly didn't help that her husband's closest friend was the king of Arendelle. Henriken and Gustav knew each other since they were very young boys. Visiting with Gustav and his family would do Henriken a world of good.

**Thirteen Years Later**

Hans was coming back to the Southern Isles. Neither his father nor any of his brothers were happy by the events of the past several days in Arendelle.

"Hans, you nearly murdered a reigning monarch!," King Henriken was on the verge of shouting.

"Father, please. What Elsa did was threaten the existence of all of Arendelle," Hans replied with a snarky tone.

"Elsa is the daughter of a very good and close friend of mine. I would protect his children with my own life if I had to," Henriken replied angrily.

Hans was extremely manipulative and his father knew that. However one skill that Hans had not mastered yet was wisdom. Challenging his father on the ability of his late and closest friend's children to rule their kingdom was definitely not the wisest course of action for Hans.

"She put me in charge and was threatening the very existence of Arendelle. I did what I did to protect Arendelle. Elsa was a threat to Arendelle," Hans replied with angrily.

"You left Gustav's youngest daughter to be frozen solid in a room. You locked the outside of the door. You then LIED to other royals gathered in Arendelle about marrying Anna thereby claiming rights to the Arendelle throne that you were not entitled to. You LIED the queen and told her that her sister was dead so you could execute her for a treason she did not commit." his father shouted at the top of his voice.

Despite everything going against him, Hans wasn't going to back down. "How long do you think it will be before Elsa is a threat to the Southern Isles, father?" Hans yelled back. "She is like Erik except that she freezes everything that she touches."

That last statement hurt King Henriken immensely. Despite years of trying to get his brothers to see past Erik's abilities, they still feared and loathed him.

"Hans, I sentence you to death!" his father yelled angrily.

The immediate sentence drew immediate gasps from the room. The loudest gasp came from his wife sitting next to him.

"Henriken, you mustn't do that!" Queen Annika said.

"And why shouldn't I? He attempted a coup against a legitimate monarch and daughter of a close friend?" the king replied angrily.

"Because he is your son. Are you putting the kingdom of your close friend above your own son?" Queen Annika replied angrily.

"Father, if I might interject.." Erik began.

"You may not!" Hentriken started to reply.

"Father, while I do not believe that the actions of Hans are defensible I do agree with mother that they are not worth the death sentence," Erik interrupted. Despite Han's behavior towards Erik, Erik stepped up and stood beside Hans.

Henriken didn't like being challenged by both his son and wife and started to become increasingly agitated.

"Why does this son deserve mercy after his actions?" Henriken demanded to know angrily.

"Because anger clouds your judgment. Do you not remember the lessons you taught me father? Do you not remember what Grand Pappi told us when you took me to visit Arendelle? Anger can consume you. The only way to control anger is through forgiveness. Otherwise anger will eat at you until you take actions that you will regret, " Erik replied calmly. "If you issue that sentence now, you will do so in anger. Is that the best decision to make?"

Erik could tell that his statement made an impact on his father. His father was becoming far less agitated.

"Good point Erik," his father replied. "I will consider your argument for mercy."

"Leave me!" the king commanded as he began to calm down and ponder his son's fate in earnest.

It would be another two days before Hans would learn his fate.

"Well Hans, what you did in Arendelle is horrible. The thought of what you did sickens my stomach. However your brother Erik make a very well made case for mercy. It took me days to cool down and consider what you did in earnest. However I won't sentence you to death. Instead I will be stripping you of all wealth and sentencing you to house arrest on Neuvo Island. All wealth that you might have access to through this family is to be surrendered immediately. Your ship to Neuvo Island will leave by sunset today. All rights and priviledges you might have had as a Prince of the Southern Isles are hereby and forthwith stripped from you effectively immediately," the king commanded.

As the king pronounced Hans' punishment for his behavior in Arendelle, Erik stood by his brother. Hans didn't acknowledge the action. Erik would stand by Hans until he was removed from the room by the guards.

"I don't get you Erik," Leif said, "Hans treats us like dirt and you stand up and argue for mercy for him. You stood by him in his initial appearance before father and even during his sentencing. Why?"

"Leif, I remember the lesson that Grand Pabbi taught very well. Anger is a very dangerous force. You can use it for good or bad. The only way to truly control anger is mercy and forgiveness. Even though what my brother was completely and utterly wrong, I still have to forgive him and protect him. He is still my brother after all."


	2. Chapter 2

Neuvo Isle is the most backwash and remote part of the Southern Isles thought Hans. Originally his father wanted to sentence Hans to death. But his mother and more importantly his brother had argued to spare him from that particular grizzly fate. What fools they are thought Hans. His father also stripped him of all wealth and all rights and privileges of being a prince of the Southern Isles. The humiliation was almost too great to bear. Except that Hans was more deceptive than many gave him credit for. Hans cried rivers of tears when he was forced to give up "much" of his wealth. Of course these were fake tears. There were numerous ways to hide wealth from his father. So while his father thought that his son was dirt poor, he actually had a substantial amount of money. What fools thought Hans maliciously. That wasn't the only advantage Hans enjoyed. Hans still had supporters who felt that he was right about Elsa. These supporters were willing to do just about anything to help Hans not only rid the world of Elsa but take his revenge on Arendelle for his humiliation.

It was a bright sunny afternoon when a homing pigeon arrived at Han's door. He quickly scooped up the pigeon and found the encoded message attached to the bird's leg. After decoding the message, Hans smiled maliciously. The other key player in his plan agreed to help him. With that piece now in place, Hans could now start planning his operations in Arendelle. There was much to prepare for and not a lot of time. Later that afternoon the first round of supplies was due to arrive. Hans also had to start making other preparations within Arendelle.

With that thought in mind, Hans quickly got some paper and started writing several coded messages. It was important that these messages get out to the proper destinations as quickly as possible. It didn't take Hans long to write the necessary messages and get the homing pigeons on their way to their destinations.

"Excuse me, sargent," Hans said to one of his guards.

"Yes, your highness?" the sargent replied.

"I would like to avoid being disturbed for any reason throughout the afternoon," Hans said, "I am working on some important papers and need to make sure that I am able to get them completed in a timely manner."

"As you wish, your highness," the sargent replied.

Once the guard had left the room, Hans quickly got up and locked the door. Hans didn't seriously expect to get interrupted. No one would ever think of visiting Neuvo Island. There is nothing here but bugs and marshland. Only those who were truly desperate or stuck here by his dimwitted father would ever think of coming to this Island. Even the soldiers who were assigned to guard him would rotate out every six months. But like a bird of prey, he would not be caged for long. Hans quickly moved to grab his logbook. It was imperative to keep accurate records to keep track of all the puzzle pieces that were in motion. Then he turned to one of the candles on the wall and triggered a latch that opened a hidden door in his study. With all legitimate traffic to Neuvo Island closely controlled by the king, there was no real reason for the guards to search for hidden doors. By their logic there was no place for Hans to go. Unfortunately for them, Hans was far more Machiavellian than anyone counted on, including his own father and brother. Hans quickly stepped through the door and closed it and proceeded down the tunnel. The tunnel was dimly light by his flickering lantern as he walked through it. This portion of the tunnel was fairly dry and warm by most standards. After travelling for about 100 feet or so, Hans came to some stairs. Hans understood at this point, the tunnel would be getting a lot damper and colder. There would be several flights of stairs in a series of switch backs. But at the end of the tunnel was a hidden cave. Inside the cave was a ship unloading cargo up.

"Compliments of the archiduke of Bracton, your Highness," the captain of the ship told Hans as he entered the cave.

"Are there any more shipments coming?" Hans answered.

"Nye your Highness. Everything you asked for has been delivered," the captain answered.

"Very well Captain. Please tell the archiduke that he will receive payment in full in very short order," Hans commanded.

"Aye sir," the captain said as he started to turn and oversee unloading operations.

"Captain, what is your estimate before you have completed unloading the cargo," Hans asked.

"We still have at least 2 more hours before we have unloaded everything," the captain replied.

"Very well then. Carry on," Hans replied.

The sailors were extremely busy. When the ship arrived, it was fully loaded down. There were boxes, bags, and barrels all over the place and all that cargo had to put somewhere. The cave itself was already fairly well full of cargo. There were stacks of barrels, mounds of bags, and piles of boxes stacked very high everywhere in the cave. Hans had recorded all of the previously arrived cargo in his logbook. Just as in previous shipments, Hans quickly got to work and started to record the cargo has it was unloaded. Sailors looked like ants as they moved between the ship, Hans and storage locations within the cave. As he recorded the cargo, Hans kept going over all the details of his plan in his mind. Every box had its use. Every piece of equipment had its use. Everything had to be perfect. After several hours, the final rounds of cargo were finally unloaded from the ship. Hans was now satisfied that everything was there.

"Captain, please tell the archduke that payment will be made according to the arrangements previously made," Hans said.

"Aye, your highness. It has been a pleasure doing business with you," the ship captain replied.

With that, the captain of the ship blew his whistle to get his crew ready to sail. The Southern Isles Navy regularly patrolled these waters and if the timing was not right the small sloop would run into one of the Southern Isles frigates that patrolled these waters. The captain glanced at his time keeper and saw that he was pushing on time. His crew would have to be sharp today. The captain quickly issued a push off order to his crew and the sloop lurched forward slowly out of the sea cave. As the sloop finally exited the cave, the captain of the ship directed his helmsman to head to the port and to skim the shore. Staying close to the shore allowed the captain to minimize his profile against the horizon in the event that there were Southern Isle frigates in the area. The sloop would blend with the shoreline and would allow the ship to escape relatively easily.

"Unknown vessel starboard side, Captain!" the crows' nest lookout cried out.

The captain quickly reached for his looking glass. At first the ship was headed right towards the sloop, which made it more difficult to see. The other problem facing the captain had been that the sun was rising behind the unknown ship. With the sun in his eyes, the captain was having difficulty discerning which flag was on the vessel. After what seemed like an eternity to the crew, the captain was able to make out colors on the other vessel.

"Rise the mast!" the captain shouted to the crew.

"Mr. Bills," the captain said to the first mate, "It would that the Southern Isles has arranged an early patrol this morning. There must be a new captain on the route today. Get the crew ready to get moving as quickly as possible. I have to assume that they have seen us. The wind is blowing from the east, so the best course of action would be to heads west towards Weasleton," the captain explained to his first officer.

"I want you to make sure that the crew is ready to make adjustments as necessary to keep the wind at our backs and take whatever evasive maneuvers are necessary to avoid that ship," the captain added.

"Aye, sir," the sloops first officer replied quickly.

With that the crew of the tiny sloop quickly leapt into action.

Meanwhile on the HMS Anderson, Captain Nelson was just coming on the deck when the first officer Mr. Brandt came up to him.

"Morning, Captain!"

"Good morning, Mr. Brandt!" Captain Hyman responded, "Are we prepared to patrol the waters of Neuvo Island today?"

"Aye sir!" the first officer responded.

"Ship at ten o'clock, Captain! Very close to Neuvo Isle" the crow's nest lookout yelled out.

"What?" Captain Nelson said, "There are no ships to be scheduled for Neuvo Isle for months. Let's have a look at our unexpected visitors, shall we?"

Captain Nelson got his looking glass and started to peer out at the ship in question. Several things about the ship started to raise red flags with Captain Nelson. The ship was clearly small and steamlined. Even with full masts, it would difficult for the frigate to catch. Smugglers liked to use the smaller ships even with the smaller cargo room. The smaller ships were harder to catch and could manuveur much easier than the larger ships. The second problem was that the ship was coming out from a sea cave nearly directly under Prince Han's palace. But the biggst problem for Captain Hyman was the lack of any colors on the ship. It was an unmarked ship.

"Mr. Brandt, it would appear that there are some smugglers on Neuvo Isle," Captain Hyman stated, "I think it is time that we have a look. Set a course for pursuit!"

"Aye, sir!" the first officer responded.

Mr. Brandt quickly got the crew going and within a few minutes the frigate had started to give chase the smaller ship. No sooner had Mr. Brandt finished giving the necessary orders to the crew, the smaller sloop decided to make a break for it. The game was on now and who would win it would be determined by the skills of the captain, the size of the ship and a fair bit of chance.

By now Hans had returned to his study and was watching this with a great deal of interest. Of all the shipments to Neuvo Island, he had not had any issues with interceptions until today. At great distances, it is very difficult for larger ships to catch up with smaller ships, especially sloops and this cat and mouse game between the sloop and the frigate was proving this out. Captain Nelson was very skilled at maneuvering the frigate so that it could quickly close the distance between himself and the sloop. Meanwhile the smugglers were very skilled at using the smaller size of their ship to their advantage and making turns and twists that the larger frigate had no chance of making. The two captains continued to play this game for nearly an hour before fate would intervene. The wind would start blowing from the east nearly due west. For all his skill, Captain Nelson could not overcome the simple fact that he had a larger warship. Not wanting to destroy his target, the Captain had relayed on trying to overtake him. But once the winds were blowing westward, the smuggler captain simply turned his smaller ship toward the west and put his sails full up. Eventually the sloop completely outran the frigrate. The smugglers would continue their voyage to Weasleton.

Captain Nelson had strong suspicions about what that ship was doing on or nearby to Neuvo Island. Southern Isle warships regularly patrolled these waters. Captain Nelson quickly ordered the frigate to return to Neuvo Island and find that cave that the sloop emerged from.

In the meantime, Hans knew that he would have to start the first part of his plan much sooner than he wanted. However that was not as big a deal though. Hans was very prepared to start with the first phase of his plan. The only thing he would have to remember is that the other pieces were not in place yet. So even when he completed that part of his plan, he would have to continue to wait for the other pieces of his plan to come together first. With that acknowledgement, Hans quickly wrote out encoded messages and got them attached to three homing pigeons. He then got the pigeons on their way. He then went to make sure that the disguised doorway before the hidden sea cave and his study was closed and locked so that if the frigate did find the cave they would not be able to necessary trace the goods in the cave to Hans. Fortunately for Hans most of the most valuable and hard to replace items were already well hidden from sight. What items that were left out was largely miscellaneous items that were already intended to throw people off to Han's real plans. With that, Hans returned to his study and make sure that the secret tunnel was secured from sight and then opened his study to go to the kitchen. He needed to make sure that he was seen by the guards going about his business. Things were about to get busy quickly.

Captain Nelson was frustrated but not surprised by the sloop's outrunning of his frigate. It was very hard to catch smugglers on the open sees and most of the time unless the smuggler was posing a great danger or smuggling arms to an enemy of the state, the Southern Isle Navy would disregard the smugglers. In this case though, the smugglers were going to Neuvo Isle. Neuvo Isle was home to Prince Hans. Captain Nelson had heard the stories of what Prince Hans had done in Arendelle. He knew how treacherous the good Prince could be. It would take about an hour but Captain Nelson would eventually find the cave that the sloop had sailed out of. Captain Nelson would lead the team to search the cave.

"It certainly doesn't look like anything of significant value here, Captain," one of the crewmembers said after a thorough searching of the cave.

The crew man was right. There were only a few boxes of wine and other liquor in the cave. However something didn't feel right to Captain Hyman. There was more here but Captain Hyman couldn't see it.

"That sloop was carrying more than that liquor," Captain Hyman said, "Keep searching. There is more in this cave than these boxes. Smugglers don't like to carry small loads."

Despite a very thorough search of the cave by the landing crew, no one found anything. Captain Hyman was about to give it up but then something caught his eye. On the ground was a very small piece of paper. The paper was nothing more than a strip. The left hand side of the strip had been clearly torn so only part of the text on that side of the strip was present. On the left hand of the strip was the text "ord." and on the right hand side was an amount of money and next to that was a signature. Normally this paper would be of very little consequence. However the signature was in Hans' hand and his initials. The paper was the same paper cloth that would be used to wrap up ammunition cartridges. Captain Nelson quickly smelled the paper. The smell of gunpowder quickly wafted to his nostrils. Nelson was now greatly alarmed at the possibilities.

As Prince Hans was the son of King Henriken, it was not the place of Captain Nelson to confront Prince Hans. But given what evidence that the Captain saw in the cave along with the piece of paper, there was enough to convince Captain Nelson that there was definitely smuggling going on on Neuvo Isle. It was time to get Commodore Hyman and King Henriken involved.

Hans watched from above as the HMS Anderson quickly set sail towards in a northwesterly direction. Hans was well aware of what the ship's captain was doing. He knew that the Captain would report the incident to his father and that his father would send one of his brothers to confront him. Little did they know that Hans would be ready for whoever came to see him.

Under normal circumstances, it was a two and a half day trip from Neuvo Isle to Trollheim. The HMS Anderson was fortunate though. The wind was largely at their back for the entire journey and they were able to make it to Trollheim in 2 days flat. Once the Anderson arrived at port, Captain Nelson quickly went to see Commodore Hyman with what he encountered and the evidence that he found.

"Let me see that paper strip, Nelson," the commodore said.

Nelson was extremely careful with the paper and made sure to keep it sealed as best as he could.

"It smells of gunpower, Commodore," Hyman stated.

The Commodore quickly took a sniff and smelled the gunpowder smell. Normally, the commodore would dismiss such smells. However the text on the paper and more importantly the initials were indicative of bigger problems.

"I recognize this type of paper. It is a small strip of paper but we might have a problem on with this. This paper is used exclusively with artillery ordinance. If Hans is getting artillery shells, then we have a very big problem. Where is he getting the money to pay for the shells and what does he intend to do with them?" the Commodore asked rhetorically.

"I wish I could say, Commodore," the captain said, "But if there is smuggling going on around Neuvo Isle, shouldn't we alert the king?"

"Absolutely. I want you prepared to give a full report to the king. Give me some time to get the meeting setup and I will come with you when you give your report to the king," the Commodore replied to his subordinate.

It would be several hours before the king could meet with his naval officers. When he did meet, he was extremely interested in hearing the report of the junior officer. Captain Nelson gave his full report before the king with Commodore Hyman standing beside him.

"So what is this paper?" the king asked sternly.

"I found that paper in the cave that a smuggler was leaving the morning we came upon Neuvo Isle, your majesty," Captain Nelson replied.

"Your majesty, that paper is frequently used to hold power used with naval long guns, your majesty," the Commodore added.

"What do you mean that the cave didn't feel right, captain?" the king inquired.

"Well, sire, that particular sloop was a sloop of war. It is still a small craft, but has a estimated tonnage of 150 tons. Smugglers don't like to make small stops. They deliver a load and then move on to the next shipment. The sloop we saw was just leaving the cave when we came upon them. But when we searched the cave, there was nothing there but a few small boxes of liquor. I just happened to chance upon this piece of paper which indicated that there might be more smuggling going on and with items that would be of grave concern to you your majesty," the captain replied earnestly.

The king pondered this. What the captain said was very true and accurate. If that was the case, what was Hans up to?

"Captain, I want you to take one of my other sons and confront Hans. I believe you with what you said about what is going on. I think it is time for me to take a closer look as to what is going on down on Neuvo Isle," the king replied.

"Aye, your majesty," the captain replied.

"Prepare your ship. I will send one of my sons down to your ship shortly," the king stated.

"As you wish, your majesty," the captain answered.

"You are dismissed, captain," the king stated before rising to leave the audience room.

"Henriken, may I have a word with you?" came a smooth voice from behind him.

"Of course, Annika," the king replied.

The king and queen quickly stepped into the king's private study.

"What is bothering you dear?" the king asked.

"Henriken, I am not going to tell you what to do dear. But be careful of who you send to confront Hans. As you are probably already aware, Hans still has many supporters of what he did in Arendelle. Even some of his own brothers think that what he did was not only acceptable but the only course of action," the queen stated.

"Of course you are right, dear. The thought had occurred to me. What I want to know is if Hans is smuggling weapons then where is the money coming from? Who is helping him?" the king asked.

"We might need to have the garrison on Neuvo Isle rotated out early," the queen suggested.

"You are probably right. As for my sons, there is only one who I can fully trust to ferret out the truth," the king answered.

"Erik?" Annika asked.

"You read my mind, dear," the king answered gamely. "Erik is hard nosed about things that he will dig until he gets the answers. He is also loyal enough to me that I don't have any doubts about whether he is loyal to Hans or me. His abilities also give him a unique view on how Hans handled himself in Arendelle."

With that discussion over with, the king quickly summoned Erik and explained his mission to him.

"Do you completely understand what I am asking of you, Erik?" the king asked sternly.

"Yes, father," Erik replied.

"You do understand that your brother will most likely not like you, correct?" the king asked.

"Yes father. He will try to provoke me to make me use my abilities. But I have learned a lot and will make sure that he does not succeed," Prince Erik answered solemnly.

"Very well then. Gather your stuff and report to Captain Hyman at once. You will leave at tide," the king replied.

Prince Erik then went to talk to Prince Leif.

"Are you sure you really want to do this, Erik?" Leif asked incredously.

"What choice do we have? Hans has supporters even our brothers. He also apparently has supporters outside of the Southern Isles as well. He is manipulative. What he did in Arendelle is completely wrong. Even outside the issue of father, what he did was well beyond wrong," Erik explained.

"What happens if he provokes you?" Leif asked.

"He won't. I have learned a lot and have practiced a lot. He will try. In fact, I expect him to push me to my limits. But I won't give him the satisfaction," Erik replied.

"I do have to ask you a favor though, Leif," Erik began.

"And what would that be?" Leif asked curiously.

"Do you remember how I would protect you when we were children?" Erik started.

"Yes, very well," Leif replied.

"I don't expect anything to happen on this trip. However if something should happen to me, you must me a solemn promise," Erik said.

"And that promise would be?" Leif replied even more curious now.

"If something happens to me, you need to protect Arendelle," Erik replied.

"Arendelle? Why?" Leif asked puzzled.

"Arendelle was the key to helping me master my abilities. Mother, father and I owe a debt of gratitude to both Arendelle and especially the trolls. Do you remember the trip that mother and father and I took to Arendelle after I nearly burned down the power magazine?" Erik replied.

"How could I? Father nearly had us banished to the outer reaches of the kingdom after that incident to keep the castle safe," Leif replied while laughing.

"The reason for that trip was to visit the trolls. The King and Queen of Arendelle were gracious enough to allow us to visit the trolls and to give us as much guidance as they could. That information allowed me to start down the path where I feel I am the master of my abilities rather than it mastering me. It is a debt that father still regards highly even today. If something happens to me, please protect them," Erik replied.

"It will be as you wish, dear brother," Leif replied solemnly. "If it is important to you, then it is important to me."

With that the two brothers than proceeded to bed. Erik would have a very early departure the next day.

Prince Erik would report to the docks the next morning early. Captain Nelson was waiting for him.

"Good morning, your highness!" the captain greeted the prince warmly.

"Good morning, Captain. Are we ready to depart?" the prince asked.

"Aye, your highness," Captain Nelson replied.

"Very well then. Let's be off!" Erik said.

The trip to Neuvo Isle would take two and a half days and would proceed very smoothly. At the end of the journey, Captain Nelson was looking through his looking glass when he saw a rather large ship anchored on the far side of Neuvo Isle.

"Mr. Brandt, sound general quarters," Captain Nelson ordered.

"Aye, Captain," the first officer responded briskly.

"Ensign, please have Prince Erik report to the bridge," Captain Nelson ordered.

"Aye, sir," the ensign replied.

A few minutes later Prince Erik reported to the bridge.

"Yes, Captain Nelson?" the prince asked.

"It appears that Hans has visitors. I am dropping you and a small contingent of men on Neuvo Isle while I investigate the other ship anchored by the island," Captain Nelson said.

"Very well, captain," Prince Erik replied.

It would take another 2 hours before the Anderson would be within rowing range of the Neuvo Isle. While the Anderson proceeded, Prince Erik and Captain Nelson developed separate encoded messages back to Trollheim apprising them of the situation and then attached the messages to homing pigeons. The two men then sent the pigeons on their way. Prince Erik and a small contingent of marines from the H.M.S. Anderson would land on the island would then proceed directly to the garrison of guards that were stationed on the island to guard Prince Hans.

"What can we do for you, your highness?" the colonel in charge asked.

"What do you know about smuggling on Neuvo Isle, colonel?" Prince Erik asked testily.

"There has been none of that since I arrived at Neuvo Isle, your highness," the colonel replied.

"Why is there a large warship on the far side of the island?" Prince Erik demanded to know.

"We saw that arrive yesterday but no one came to the shore. So we kept an eye on them but no one came ashore," the colonel responded.

"Where is Hans, colonel?" Prince Erik asked.

"He should be in his palace, your highness," the colonel replied.

"Come with me. We will pay him a visit," Prince Erik said.

"Well, well, if it is not my freak brother," Hans said as Erik and the colonel entered the palace.

"Enough!" Prince Erik commanded, "Hans, father received credible evidence that there has been smuggling going on here. Care to tell me what you know?" Erik demanded.

In the meantime, Captain Nelson was bringing the HMS Anderson around when the other ship sprang into action as if releasing a trap. The men on the other ship quickly sprang to their stations and lifted the anchor and raised the sails. Gunports on both sides of the ship opened up.

"Mr. Brandt, prepare the crew for battle!" Captain Nelson commanded.

"Aye sir!" Mr Brandt responded briskly.

With that command, the gun ports on the Anderson opened up quickly and the Anderson quickly started coming up on the other ship.

BOOM! As the first broadside from the unmarked ship blasted the side of the Anderson!

BOOM! As the Anderson returned fire. With that the naval battle was on. Captain Nelson knew that his ship was a solid ship and could take quite a pounding. Captain Nelson figured that the Anderson would be more than a match to take the single ship. Additionally Captain Nelson was both an able seaman and a seasoned captain and was confident he could win the fight.

"Honestly brother! I have no idea where you or Captain Nelson might have come up with this 'evidence' that you claim to have. But there is no smuggling going on here," Hans answered angrily.

Just then the sounds of naval cannon fire reached the palace. The sounds of the naval cannon fire did not go unnoticed in the palace on shore. Prince Erik and the colonel raced out to see what was going on when they came to the top of the hill overlooking the bay with the two ships which were fighting. Erik was so mesmerized by the naval fight that he almost missed the crowd of foreign troops starting up the hill. But the shouting of the officers down the hill quickly grabbed his attention.

"Colonel, sound the alarm and raise the garrison!" Prince Erik commanded.

"Yes your highness!" the colonel replied as he raced back to the garrison.

In all the excitement, neither Erik nor the colonel had noticed that Hans had stayed back in the palace. In fact, Hans had headed back to his study as if nothing were going on at all.

Within minutes of the action starting, the bell at the garrison was sounding and the Southern Isles guards were quickly mustering at the top of the hill around Prince Erik. It was quickly becoming apparent to Erik that this was going to be a losing fight. By his count, there was nearly 300 troops coming ashore. Then Prince Erik started thinking. Three hundred troops was a lot of troops to come ashore. Who would be left manning the other ship unless…. Prince Erik would not be able to finish his thought.

Captain Nelson and his crew were holding their own. However the tide of the fight was about to turn against them when a second ship started coming around the corner. Like the first ship, the second ship was unmarked. As it came around the Anderson it opened its gun ports and then opened fire with its first broadside. Unlike the previous broadsides, the second ship fired with grape shot. For wooden warships, grapeshot was terribly devastating to both ship and crew. Grape shot consists of cannonballs connected together with chains. Grapeshot would completely tear apart both ship and crew and Captain Nelson knew immediately that he was in trouble. Then the first ship started firing again this time with grapeshot. The Anderson's decks were now running red with blood from the crew and ship was now starting to severely splinter. The fight might still be winnable but it would be a close fight. Then Captain Nelson became aware of a third unmarked ship at the bow of the Anderson, which was taking broadside position. At this point, Captain Nelson knew he was in a losing fight. The third ship started firing flaming shots. The decks were already full of bodies and blood. Another round of grapeshot hit the Anderson and then Captain Nelson began to hear a dreaded crack from the main mast of the Anderson. The first ship in the first then switched from grapeshot to flaming rounds and started firing again. By now the flaming rounds were starting to have an effect on the ship and the HMS Anderson was starting to burn on all decks above the water. Captain Nelson knew that it would only be a matter of minutes before the flames reached the powder room. Looking down below from his perch, Captain Nelson saw an ensign trying to help the wounded.

"Ensign, release the mongeese!" shouted Captain Nelson.

"Aye sir!" the ensign ordered without so much a protest.

The mongeese quickly departed the scene of the battle.

Meantime Prince Erik and the garrison colonel were mustering the troops on the hill. Both men were under no illusions. This was a losing fight from the get go. However Erik was determined to do whatever he could to stop the men from reaching his brother Hans. The two sides exchanged several rounds of musket fire. After nearly 30 minutes of battle, at least half of the Southern Isle troops were killed or wounded and approximately 50 foreign troops were killed or wounded.

"Fall back! Fall back!" shouted Prince Erik and the garrison colonel.

At the front of the palace was a curved wall of stone. It would provide some cover and allow Prince Erik to keep fighting the foreign troops. By now the fighting was becoming fierce. By now, Erik was now openly throwing fireballs at the foreign troops to keep them at bay. Even with the stone wall, the Southern Isle troops were still falling like flies.

About this time, the naval battle was coming to a close. The HMS Anderson was now engulfed in flames. Most of the crew was wounded or killed. Moments later, the HMS Anderson exploded into a fireball as the power in the power room exploded. The other three ships surrounded what was left of the HMS Anderson. Over the din of the explosion, wind and waves, the order "No quarter! No quarter!" was shouted. The men on the three ships lifted their muskets and started firing into the water. The crews of these ships repeated the process several times. Of course it was pretty much wasted effort as the HMS Anderson was now starting to go down with all hands aboard.

Erik gasped as he saw the Anderson explode. He was now starting to feel angry over what was going on. Erik quickly raised his hand and shot a column of flame from the palm of his hand to keep the enemies from getting too close. It was about this time that Erik saw Hans come from his office.

"Get behind me quickly brother and I will help protect you from these foreign troops," Erik shouted quickly!

Hans did get behind his brother as Erik shot out another column of flame to hold off the advancing enemy troops. Just as Erik was getting ready to send another column out, someone stabbed Erik in the back just next to his spine and behind his heart. The wound would be mortal. Erik quickly fell to his knees. Just then a group of soldiers brought their muskets up and fired at Prince Erik at point blank range. Erik would be hit four times and would fall over dead. The fighting on Neuvo Isle would finally stop 20 minutes later.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Great Pursuit

The Great Pursuit

The homing pigeons would arrive safely in Trollheim a few days after the battle of Neuvo Isle. The Southern Isle Naval Command would receive the pigeons and get the encoded messages. As soon as the messages were decoded they were brought to Commodore Hyman's attention right away.

"Commodore, we have reached Neuvo Isle safely. There seems to be a rather large ship on the far side of the island. We are investigating. I am dispatching Prince Erik and a small contingent of marines to confront Hans."

The second message was from Prince Erik.

"Father, we have reached Neuvo Isle safely. Captain Nelson is investigating a large ship on the far side of the island. I will be confronting Hans with the garrison commander and investingating these reports of smuggling."

Commodore Hyman knew that King Henriken would want to know about these messages as soon as he could. So the Commodore arranged a meeting with the king within the hour. In the meantime, the Commodore had another engagement just prior to meeting with the king. So the officer got up and started walking to his next engagement. As the officer was walking, he started thinking about the large ship that was anchored by Neuvo Island. It seemed pretty brazen to Commodore Nelson. How did such large ships get there without being noticed by the garrison? Were members of the garrison in on the operation as well? What exactly was happening on Neuvo Isle? Just then a loud honking sound disrupted Commodore Nelson's thinking. Above his head flew three mongooses. When Commodore Hyman looked at them closely, the blood drained out of his face. These mongooses had three silver diamonds painted on them. That was the symbol of the HMS Anderson. The Anderson must have gone down but what would have caused that? The commodore realized that he had a major crisis on his hands and needed to see the king immediately.

"Ensign, please tell the captain of the Nordstrom that the review of his ship must wait. I have an emergency to discuss with the king. Please tell the captain though that he and his crew must be ready to depart Trollheim immediately if I order," the commodore told his assistant.

"Aye sir," the ensign replied before running off to the Nordstorm.

The commodore immediately switched directions and headed to the royal palace.

"I am sorry Commodore Hyman, but the king is meeting with the ambassador for Weasleton discussing a potential trade deal with Weasleton," the king's personal secretary told the naval officer.

"Inform his majesty that we have lost the Anderson and I belive that we have a crisis situation on Neuvo Isle," the commodore replied.

The mention of the loss of a potential naval warship was enough to grab the attention of the king's secretary.

"Let me inform him of the situation right away, Commodore," the secretary replied.

"I am sorry, Mr. Ambassador, but that trade deal is not acceptable to me. If you want to add some additional resources to that deal," the king began to explain yet again when his personal secretary came in.

"I beg your pardon for disrupting your trade meeting, your majesty, but we have a crisis situation that needs your immediate attention," the secretary explained.

"What is going on Mr. Balder?" King Henriken asked.

"Commodore Hyman said he has a crisis that he needs to discuss with you involving Neuvo Isle, sire," the secretary answered.

Commodore Hyman was the longest serving naval officer in King Henriken's navy. Hyman was both politically and militarily astute. Hyman was also one of his most trusted military officers. If he felt that he had a crisis, King Henriken knew better than to ignore the situation.

"You will have to excuse me, Mr. Ambassador, but I have a situation come up which requires my immediate attention. We will need to pick up this discussion at a later date. Please see Mr. Balder to schedule a continuation of this meeting," King Henriken said in an authoritative voice that let the Weasleton representative know that the meeting was now over.

King Henriken quickly went to his private study where Commodore Hyman was waiting for the king.

"What is the news, Hyman?" the king asked.

"I have good news and bad news, your majesty," the commodore answered.

"What is the good news?" the king asked tentatively.

"The good news is that the Anderson reached Neuvo Isle safely and found some evidence of smuggling in that there was a large ship anchored offshore," the commodore said.

"And the bad news?" the king asked fearfully.

"We lost the Anderson," the commodore answered as he grimaced as he said it.

"How do you know that we lost the ship, Hyman?" the king asked.

"I received the messages of their safe arrival early this morning. When I was on my way to inspect the Nordstorm, I saw the three mongooses with the triple diamonds on their wings," the commodore answered definitively.

King Henriken gasped. "What do you think happened, Hyman? Did the smugglers attack the Anderson?"

"Your majesty, I have served in your navy for 45 years now. I have never seen smugglers open attack a naval warship. Even pirates go out of their way to avoid entanglements with royal navies if they can avoid it. Plus the Anderson was a heavily armed warship. She has a tonnage of 2,132 tons and 50 guns. She had a crew of at least 500 men. For any smuggler to attack a Southern Isle frigate such as the Anderson is suicidal at best," the commodore replied grimly.

"So that would mean that either a much larger warship attacked the Anderson or multiple warships," the king said.

"That is what I am thinking," the commodore replied.

"Commodore, has there been any further communication with Prince Erik?" the king replied.

"No sire, there has not," the commodore said.

"Commodore, I want you to take Prince Leif and a flotilla with overwhelming force to investigate Neuvo Isle. At this point, be prepared for anything. We can't rule out foreign forces having attacked the island at this point," the king commanded.

"Aye, your majesty," Commodore Hyman responded. "But are you sure you want to take Prince Leif, sire?"

"Yes, he needs to learn how to stand up for himself. His protector is now missing. Hopefully sending him will help him become a better prince in the process," the king replied.

"Yes, sire. With your permission, I would like to take your leave and ready the fleet. I would like to take the Nordstorm, the Aurora, and the Mjolnir," the loyal naval officer replied.

"Permission granted. Good hunting Hyman. Please let Prince Erik take increasingly levels of command as you are comfortable," the king replied.

"Aye sir!" Commodore Hyman replied and then walked out of the fleet.

There was much work for both men to do. Commodore Nelson quickly came back to the Ensign he encountered when he first saw the mongooses.

"Ensign, go tell the captain of the Nordstorm that his inspection has changed. His inspection is actually a deployment call. I want him and his crew ready to head out with the Aurora and Mjolnir at high tide tomorrow for Neuvo Isle with all due speed. Tell him that any man who is not ready to move at at that point will be flogged in front of the crew," the Commodore said sternly. "Once you have visited the Nordstorm, repeat that message to the Captain and the Mjolnir."

"Aye, sir!" the young naval officer replied saluting. He then ran off to communicate the commodore's orders to the fleet.

Prince Leif was dreading the meeting with his father. King Henriken had summoned the young prince to his private study just over 10 minutes ago. Leif wished Erik was here. He would always know how to handle any situation with his father. It was just over a week ago since Erik left. He wondered why his father was calling him to his private study. Eventually Leif arrived at the door to his father's study and knocked.

"Come," the king answered.

"You wished to see me, father?" Prince Leif asked.

Prince Leif was 24 years old and was far more reserved than his twin brother. However King Henriken had seen real potential for leadership and more development for his son given the right circumstances. Granted the situation at hand was not ideal, but there was nothing the king could do about it.

"Leif, Commodore Hyman received some word that the HMS Anderson arrived safely at Neuvo Isle this morning," the king began.

"That is good news," Prince Leif interrupted slightly relieved at the news.

"Unfortunately that is the only good news. Captain Nelson dropped Erik and a small contingent of marines on the island to talk to Hans. Then he went to investigate a ship anchored in a bay by the island. That was the last communication from your brother and the ship we received. This morning the mongooses from the Anderson were flying over Trollheim. Commodore Hyman saw them when we was on his way to inspect HMS Nordstorm this morning," the king said grimly.

Prince Leif gasped.

"Has there been any further word from Erik?" Leif asked.

"None that we know of. Commodore Hyman doesn't know what would have caused the Anderson to cut the birds loose. He thinks that pirates and smugglers would go out of their way to avoid royal navies and I tend to agree. The problem is that we don't know what happened to the Anderson," the king said.

"I have ordered Commodore Hyman to take overwhelming force to Neuvo Isle and investigate both what happened to the Anderson and both of your brothers. I want you go along with and help with the investigation," the king commanded.

"Yes, father," Leif responded.

"You will leave at high tide tomorrow. Understood?" the king stated.

"Yes, father," Leif asked with a bit of apprehension in his voice.

"Go get ready to go. Good hunting Leif," the king said.

With that Leif turned and walked out of the study. There was some items he would have to get done before he left. As he walked to his room, fears and insecurities flooded through his mind. What had happened to Erik? What if Erik had disappeared along with Hans? What is Erik and Hans were prisoners somewhere? What if Erik and/or Hans were dead? Leif had to push all of the negative thoughts out of his mind. He had to focus on his job and get ready to deploy with Commodore Hyman the next morning.

It would take a great deal of effort on Leif's efforts to focus on what had to be done rather than his doubts and fears but he was able to complete the task. The Mjolnir was aptly named. It was the largest and most powerful ship in the Southern Isle navy. Commodore Hyman himself personally designed the ship. The ship had a 4,235 tonnage and was armed with 90 guns. It was very much equivalent to war galleons he had seen in other countries. A crew of 700 men manned the ship. The Aurora and the Nordstorm were the same size as the HMS Anderson. Beyond the crew, Commodore Hyman arranged for an additional crew of 600 Southern Isle marines as well. Two hundred marines were on each ship. As dock and the ship crews had worked throughout the night, all three ships were ready to leave at first light. Commodore Hyman was pleased as he boarded the Mjolnir.

Commodore Hyman was one of the most revered naval officers in the Southern Isle navy. He had extremely high standards and any crew that failed to meet those standads would almost certainly feel the effects of his discipline. For all his high standards though, Commodore Hyman was considered an extremely competent naval officer. When Commodore Hyman gave orders there was a significantly good reason why he gave the orders. When the crews followed his orders, the crews would return home safely.

"Good morning, Commodore," the captain of the Mjolnir said.

"Good morning, captain," the commodore replied. "Are we ready to push off?"

The captain replied, "We are waiting for the arrival of Prince Leif, sir."

"Very well, " the commodore replied.

Prince Leif did not sleep well the previous night. He had several bad dreams all involving Hans and Erik. As a result of the nightmares, Leif was very tired when he was finally ready to leave for the docks.

"You do not look like you slept well, your highness," the Commodore commented after seeing a bedraggled Leif walk aboard the Mjolnir.

"No, I didn't. I kept thinking of Hans and Erik," Prince Leif responded.

"Well, we will get there as quickly as we can, your highness. Don't worry about it too much as there is nothing much you can do right now. However if you are ready, we will push off and get started immediately so we can get to Neuvo Isle as quickly as possible," the Commodore stated.

"Yes, Commodore. I am ready. Please push off," Prince Leif responded.

With that, Leif then took his belongings to his cabin. While the Commodore was in charge of the military in this operation, Prince Leif still got the stateroom on the Mjolnir due to his rank. Leif quickly got his stuff put away while the fleet got underway. It was going to be a long voyage and Leif decided to try to get more sleep. Unfortunately sleep was not coming to Leif any quicker than it came to him in his room. The one thought that kept ringing in his ears was the promise he made to Erik before his brother's departure. He promised that he would keep Arendelle safe from whatever threats Hans might cause if something happened to Erik. That promise kept ringing in his mind. Eventually Leif would fall asleep but it would be a very restless sleep.

The voyage to Neuvo Isle would take two and a half days to complete. But in Leif's mind it would take an eternity. He was not sleeping well. He would keep tossing and turning and having nightmares where he was falling in a deep pit and screaming out for help and Erik couldn't reach him to help. He would wake up in cold sweats sitting up right in bed before realizing that it was just a nightmare.

It would be nearly dark before the fleet would arrive at Neuvo Isle. It was too dark to really see anything. It would be another frustratring night of waiting. Waiting to see what they could see on the island. Another night of restless and dreamless night for Leif as they waited for the sun to come up

Eventually the sun did come up the next morning. Even though it was not the best sleep, Leif was more rested than when the voyage started. As a result he was able to meet Commodore Hyman on the deck early as the sun was coming up the next morning. The Commodore immediately told the captain of the Mjolnir to put the crew at general quarters. He then had his orders relayed to the Aurora and the Nordstorm. The fleet then set out to sail around the island. The first thing that the fleet came to was the burned out barracks for the garrison on the island. That was when Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif realized that the worst-case scenario was what happened. The next thing that they saw stuck horror in both Leif and Commodore Hyman. The HMS Anderson had gone down in shallow water. The stern of the ship was sticking out of the water near the ship's aftcastle. The aftcastle was burned out and part of the name of the ship was burned off. All that was visible of the ship's name was derson. The rest of the name was burned completely off. First the first time in the voyage, Commodore Nelson was starting to get upset.

"Drop Anchor! I want marines on that island NOW!" Commodore Hyman commanded.

After recovering from the stunning view of the Anderson, the crew began to snap to and begin carrying out the orders as Commodore Hyman shouted them out. In the meantime, Commodore Hyman took his spy glass and started looking at the wreckage of the Anderson. Most of the ship from the forecastle to the aftcastle was missing.

"The Anderson appears to have taken an immense hammering, Commodore," Prince Leif stated.

"It appears that the power magazine exploded. The magazine is right behind the forecastle and most of the ship between the forecastle and the aftcastle is gone. Based on the damage patterns I am seeing, I think that there was at least two vessels attacking the Anderson. Grape shot was clearly used given the damage I am seeing on the outer hull. There is no much I can tell from here except that she took a lot of damage in the fight," the Commodore said with the slightest bit of anger in his voice.

With that the Commodore took the time to get the fleet positioned up and to secure the bay. The Aurora and Nordstorm took the outer most position with the Mjolnir in the inner most position to support the other two frigrates. With the ships positioned Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif and about 600 Southern Isle marines went ashore. The troops quickly found the burned out barracks where the garrison was housed. There were no bodies in the barracks.

"So where are the troops?" the Commodore asked.

Just then a sergeant yelled out, "Up here sir!"

The Commodore and Prince Leif went running up the hill. What they found devastated them. Nearly 25 Southern Isles were laying on the ground dead. They were killed fighting an unknown attacking force.

"Either our troops are poor shots or the attacking force took their dead with them," Prince Leif noted.

"Yes, someone wants to remain hidden," the Commodore agreed.

"Prince Erik would have been in the middle of this fight, but he is not in this group of troops," Leif stated grimly.

"Split up and look for any more troops that might have been killed or hidden out while the enemy was attacking," Commodore Hyman ordered the marines.

It took the group about 10 minutes to finally find the remains of the last of the Southern Isle garrison by the front door of the palace where Hans lived.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Prince Leif yelled as he found his brother laying dead in the middle of the group.

Prince Leif just fell by his brother sobbing.

"Your highness, I realize that you are sad about Prince Erik. But we do not see Prince Hans in this group," the Commodore stated.

For several minutes, Prince Leif was unable to comprehend anything that was said to him while he was digesting the loss of his twin brother. It was then that Leif realized that his dream about him falling in a pit where Erik could not reach him was more truth than he realized. After about 30 minutes, Leif started to come around although he was still in a world of shock.

"Your highness, we really need to search for Prince Hans. He is not in this group," the Commodore stated.

It took all Prince Leif had to simply nod his head in agreement. Seeing that Prince Leif was still distraught over the loss of Prince Erik, Commodore Hyman ordered that a group of men start searching the palace thoroughly for Prince Hans. The Commodore then ordered that another group of men start searching the remainder of the island for Prince Hans. It would take the first group of men nearly 45 minutes before they completed the search of the palace and returned to Commodore Hyman.

"There is no sign of Prince Hans, Commodore," a marine captain reported, "However we did find a hidden door that lead to a sea cave but we did not find Prince Hans there."

"A sea cave you say?" the Commodore asked with a sudden interest.

"Yes sir. There were just a few paltry boxes in there. Largely some liquor boxes. However there was signs that there was more there at one time that was recently moved. But whatever was there is not there anymore sir," the captain reported.

At this point, Prince Leif was starting to re-engage. This time his voice reflected a slight change in tone the Commodore noted.

"Can you show me this sea cave, captain?" Prince Leif asked.

"Yes, your highness. I can show you at once," the captain replied.

With that the Prince, the captain and Commodore Hyman all went down the hidden tunnel to the sea cave. It was at this point that Commodore Hyman was starting to put some of the pieces together. Once he got to the cave, his suspicions were starting to grow stronger. The Commodore and Leif were looking around the cave. When they looked at the ground, they could see the impressions in the sand where items were stacked up.

"Your highness, I believe we were standing right below Prince Hans office. There is no way that this could have been coincidence or happen stance. Hans was smuggling big items and the men who attacked the Anderson were here to take Hans and his goods. But where would they go and what would they do with Prince Hans. Not that it really matters much," the Commodore said.

"Be careful with your words, Commodore. Hans may be doing things illegally. But he is still my brother and he deserves to present his case before my father," Leif reprimanded the Commodore.

"Of course, you highness. I beg your pardon," the Commodore replied.

It was about then that the Commodore noticed something on the ground. When he picked it up it was a much bigger piece of the same type of cloth that Captain Nelson had shown the Commodore earlier. When the Commodore smelled it, the smell of gunpowder was overwhelming.

"Your highness, there has been cannon ammunition in here and I am guess cannon as well," the Commodore stated.

Once the Commodore showed the cloth to the Prince and gave him a chance to smell in, Leif knew instinctively what it was.

"This came from the power bag for a naval long gun didn't it Commodore?" Leif asked with an edge in it.

"Yes your majesty," the Commodore replied.

"Commodore, Hans was taken alright. But he was taken at his request. Those who attacked this island were freeing Hans. Hans in on his way to Arendelle to try to take the crown from Elsa again," Leif said this time was a deep anger in his voice that the Commodore noted wasn't there before.

"If you don't mind my asking, how would you know that your highness?" the Commodore asked.

"Simple, Hans wants a grown. My guess is that Hans deceived Erik and my father and hid a large amount of wealth from him. He probably used that wealth to buy cannon and other weapons to amount an assault on Arendelle," Prince Leif responded.

"Your highness, that would amount to treason. Also Hans had wealth but not enough wealth to hire pirates to attack a royal navy frigate that would be suicide on the part of the pirates," the Commodore argued.

"Agreed, but I believe Hans has supporters who are not pirates and are willing to part with their wealth and/or navies to assist Hans," Prince Leif argued.

"But who would want to risk going to war with the Southern Isles? We have a large and powerful navy. Only Arendelle has a larger and more powerful navy," the Commodore argued.

"I don't know Commodore, but we need to find out," Prince Leif replied.

With that said, the group returned to the surface. Once at the foyer of the palace the captain of the second group searching for Prince Hans reported not finding any sign of Prince Hans. By now it was late afternoon. Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman quickly realized that Hans was most likely gone and on his way to Arendelle. All the smuggled goods were taken with him and that there was no further point in staying at Neuvo Isle. The two men also agreed that before they left for Trollheim to report the situation to King Henriken that they would bury the soldiers of the Neuvo Isle garrison and prepare the body of Prince Erik for transport back to Trollheim.

Prince Leif's dreams immediately changed that night. Whereas the previous dreams were full of fear and dread, the new dream was full of anger and rage. Leif's didn't know who killed Erik, but he wanted to kill them. He tossed and turned all night as he kept thinking of Erik and the moment he died. Eventually the dreams stopped and Leif was fall into a restless sleep.

The next morning the marines and Prince Leif started burying the Southern Isles troops who were killed in the battle of Neuvo Isle. It would be late afternoon and early evening before the 60 Southern Isle troops killed in the battle would be buried. Prince Leif would personally get his brother's body ready for transport back to Trollheim. That was the toughest part of the day for Leif. It would be after dark when he finally finished and got the body back to the Mjolnir.

"I am deeply sorry for your loss, your highness," the Commodore said upon Leif's return to the flag ship.

"Thank you Commodore, but we must return to Trollheim as quickly as we can to alert my father to this situation," Prince Leif said.

Normally the Commodore would hold off departing until first light. But in this case, the situation was too urgent to delay.

"Prepare to make way for Trollheim!" Commodore Hyman commanded the crew.

With that, the crews started to make way and Mjolnir pulled anchor. It took time for the three ships to get coordinated. It would be close to midnight before the flotilla would depart Neuvo Isle for Trollheim. The next two and a half days would the longest period of time for Leif. His sleep would be either dreamless restless nights or would be filled with nightmares of falling in the abyss with Erik unable to help him.

It would be in the early morning when the flotilla would arrive in Trollheim. Commodore Hyman quickly arranged an emergency meeting with King Henriken while Prince Leif arranged for Erik's body to be taken to the cathedral for funeral preparations.

By mid-morning, Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman were in front of the king reporting on their findings. King Henriken was absolutely heart broken. Not only did he lose a son, but he was most likely betrayed by another son.

"Commodore and Leif, are you absolutely certain that Hans has left for Arendelle?" Henriken said.

"Absolutely! And we are fairly certain he is taking weapons with the intent of seizing the Arendelle monarchy for himself," Leif said.

"I concur with Prince Leif's assessment," the Commodore replied.

"Very well, I want you to continue to pursue Hans to Arendelle and look for him there. I will write you a letter of marque for Queen Elsa to help you get some cooperation from Arendelle to hunt down Hans. I also want details on who assisted him and if they were state supported. If they were then that particular state should prepare for war. Commodore, would you please leave me and Leif for a few minutes so I can have some private words with him?"

"Yes, your majesty. With your permission, your majesty I would like to take your leave and prepare the fleet to leave for Arendelle within the day," Commodore Hyman requested.

"Granted! Good hunting Hyman!" King Henriken replied.

"Thank you, your majesty!" Commodore Hyman replied.

With that Commodore Hyman walked out of the room.

"Leif, I need you to be careful. Your tone has changed since I last saw you. There is more anger in your voice now. You need to be careful. Hans will tweak you and promote you to anger. Given your brother's abilities, you need to be careful. You might have latent abilities that might not have been developed yet. Be very careful," King Henriken admonished his son.

"Yes, father," Prince Leif replied.

"I want you to pay your final farewells to your brother before you leave. Unfortunately we will have the funeral before you get back. I would like you stay but the urgency of your mission is too important," the king said.

"Yes father," Leif replied.

"Very well then. Good hunting and sent regular reports," the king commanded.

"Thanks father!" Leif replied and he quickly left the room.

King Henriken could only sigh. He loved his sons but could only worry that his son would lose control and explode in a fiery rage. It didn't matter. It was only a matter of time before Leif ran into this potential issue. With that, Henriken started writing the letter of marque for his son and Commodore Hyman to present to Queen Elsa.

Prince Leif was helping Commodore Hyman prepare the fleet for departure when a messenger from the king brought the letter of marque and presented to Prince Leif. Before he left, Prince Leif went to spend some time with Erik in the cathedral.

"What am I going to do now Erik? Who will protect me now?" Leif thought.

After two hours of sitting with Erik, Prince Leif went back to the fleet and got aboard. Shortly thereafter the flotilla left Trollheim in the great pursuit of Hans.

King Henriken and Queen Annika watched the flotilla depart Trollheim with a great deal of apprehension and worry about Leif.


	4. Chapter 4 - Laying The Traps

"Come on, Colby!" shouted Sophie into her brother's ear.

"Ughh… It's too early Sophie. Go back to sleep," her brother replied.

"I can't. The sky's awake and that means I am awake and I need to play," Sophie answered.

Sophie and Colby were four year old twin children of Anna, Princess of Arendelle and Prince Kristoff of Arendelle. Whereas Colby had a personality similar to his father, Sophie was far more like her mother. This meant that Sophie was going to be very insistent on getting her brother out of bed, even if it meant jumping on him. And that is exactly what she proceeded to do.

"Ugggghhhh…. Okay, okay…. I am coming," Colby finally relented after being bounced on by his sister for several minutes.

Sophie was sufficiently satisfied that she had woken up her brother. Now it was time to have fun. Sophie started to skip down the hallway rather excitedly.

Today was the day that Anna and Kristoff took their family to North Mountain for a few days. It would be nice for the family to get away from the castle for a few days. They had been cooped up for so long. The family had been cooped up in the castle for a while and it would be nice to get out for a family outing for a few days.

Anna had started to assist Elsa with several issues related to the kingdom and as a result had been away from her family on more occasions than she cared to count. It was not that Elsa could not handle the load, but Anna honestly enjoyed helping out and there were numerous times when Elsa had two or three meetings scheduled at the same time. Elsa sincerely appreciated the help with the workload. Coming out of nearly fifteen years of isolation had created significant interest in trade deals and other negotiations between Arendelle and the rest of the world. Fortunately the trade deal between Corona (where Anna and Elsa's cousin Princess Rapunzel) resided and Arendelle was nearly complete. Fortunately that trade deal was many years in the making but was a large enough deal to completely offset the loss of the trade deals with Weaslton. With that trade deal nearly complete, things were starting to slow down in the kingdom and Elsa wanted Anna and Kristoff to take their children to the ice palace on North Mountain.

"Come on Colby," Sophie squealed as she excitedly started to cram toys and other goodies into one of her bags. Of course the castle staff would pack her clothing, but Sophie wanted to have her brother's help in packing some of her toys.

Needless to say, Colby wasn't as excited by this prospect of helping his sister pack her toys. But if his choices were to help Sophie or be bounced on by Sophie in bed, he would help her. Eventually the kids got to Sophie's room where it seemed like she had piled every toy she owned in a pile to take with her.

"You can't take that much," Colby protested.

"Of course I can silly. I just need your help in getting it all packed," Sophie said excitedly.

"No, you can't, Sophie. Do you really think that Papa will let you take this much? Besides if you take this much stuff, do you think Sven will even consider pulling the sleigh?" Colby retorted to his sister.

This discussion would continue nearly 10 minutes before Kristoff would enter the room to see what all the fuss was about.

"Papa, Colby won't help me pack all my toys to take with today," Sophie complained.

"Ummm…. Sophie that is an awful lot of toys. We are visiting the ice palace on the North Mountain, not moving in," her father answered.

"Ahhhh Papa….." Sophied started.

"Besides you wouldn't want to hurt Sven by making him take an ultra heavy load of toys do you?" Kristoff asked.

Of course Sven was more than good for the load. Sven was used to pulling heavy loads of ice. But the idea of Sophie taking all of her toys was very amusing to Kristoff.

"Oh, okay," Sophie said dejectedly.

"Colby can help you pack some of your toys. The rest of your toys you need to put away," Kristoff said.

"Yes, Papa," Sophie replied.

Colby was much relieved by this suggestion. Given the choice of trying to pack all of his sister's toys or just some of them, he would take the latter. Plus he still had to pack some of his stuff as well. Unlike Sophie, Colby hadn't thought about what stuff he wanted to take. With that in mind, he and Sophie quickly got to work.

Needless to say, the kids were extremely excited by the coming trip. This trip would be the first trip for the children to the ice palace that their aunt had made. Sophie was just simply excited about the adventure that the family was going to have. Like his father, Colby was extremely interested in seeing the structure of the ice palace and looking around. He was fascinated by ice like his father.

It would take nearly 30 minutes before Sophie and Colby had managed to get the mountain of toys that Sophie had piled up earlier into a manageable pile that could actually be packed into a small suitcase. Colby would finish helping his sister get packed up and ready to go.

Just then the kids' father came back in the room.

"Who is ready to eat breakfast?" he asked with a wide grin on his face.

"I am! I am!" squealed Sophie as she ran out of her room to the dining room.

"Papa, how long will it take to get to the ice castle?" Colby asked.

"Normally, it takes about a day to get there. But we are going to take our time getting there and it should take about two days to get there," his father replied.

"Why so long?" Colby asked.

"Well, I would like to see Grand Pabbi and there is one other stop we need to make on the way to the ice castle," Kristoff replied to his son.

"YAY!" Colby shouted with glee.

Colby was very fond of the trolls and enjoyed spending time with them. It would be good to see them again Colby thought as he and his father walked to the dining room.

"We already ate while you slow pokes were still walking to the dining room," Sophie teased her brother and father as they walked in the room.

"Don't worry. We will get our fair share of the food," Kristoff replied in kind to his daughter.

Anna just looked at her husband with loving eyes as he sat down with Colby to start eating breakfast.

"Well are you kids packed?" Anna asked rather excitedly.

"Yes mama," Sophie squealed again.

"Not yet mama," Colby answered, "I was helping Sophie get packed and hadn't had a chance to pack myself. Of course, I would have been done sooner if Sophie hadn't tried to take a mountain of toys in her first packing attempt."

"Now, now Colby," Anna replied. "Do you want me to help you get packed?"

"Thanks mama!" Colby answered.

Just then Elsa walked into the dining room.

"Good morning!" Elsa greeted everyone as she walked into the room.

"Good morning auntie!" Sophie greeted back.

"We leave to see the Trolls and your ice palace today," Sophie explained to her aunt.

"I know. Are you excited about your journey?" Elsa asked.

"Yes and I can't wait!" Sophie squealed much like her mother when she would get excited.

"Well, I have everything ready for you at the ice palace. By the way, I let Marshmallow know to expect your arrival at some point tomorrow. I promise he won't try to throw you off the cliff this time," Else laughed while remembering Anna's last encounter with Marshmallow.

"Thanks Elsa! Personally I would rather not go over the side of a cliff again," Anna said while laughing, "And I know that Kristoff is also not found of being thrown of cliffs eithers."

"You can say that again," Kristoff replied.

"Well, I had the staff pack your belongings that you are taking on the sleigh. Are you sure you don't want additional horses, Kristoff?" Elsa asked.

"No, Sven will do fine with it. Besides the ice that we carry into town is a lot heavier than what we will be carrying with us," Kristoff replied.

"Unless Sophie tries to take all of her toys again," Colby added before his sister gave him the evil eye.

The family continued to eat their breakfast. Once Colby was finished, Anna then started to get up.

"Well, I am going to take Colby up and help him finish packing up. Are you ready to go Sophie?"

"Yes, mama. Colby helped me finish my packing," Sophie replied.

"How about you Kristoff?" Anna asked.

"I am ready to leave when you are," Kristoff replied.

"Very well, let me help Colby and we can be off," Anna replied.

With that the family quickly disperse to finish getting ready to leave for the trip. Kristoff went to hitch up Sven to the sleigh and Anna went with her father. Colby and Anna went to Colby's room to help finish packing.

It had been nearly a week since the battle of Neuvo Isle. It was nice to be truly free again thought Hans. Hans knew that he wasn't absolutely free. Eventually the word of the loss of the Anderson and Prince Erik would reach Trollheim. But that point, Hans would be in control of the Arendelle thrown and there would be little his father could do about it.

"Your highness, we have reach the designated rally point," the ship's captain reported.

"Very well. Make landfall and let's start setting up defensive fortifications," Prince Hans commanded the ship's commander.

"Aye sir!" the captain replied before walking out to start carrying out the orders just given.

Hans had been forced to carry out his plan a bit earlier than he wanted. The fortunate thing for Hans was that he was able to adjust accordingly. The first step was to send out homing pigeons that would start putting the necessary pieces into place. Once the pieces were in place, the plans could start being executed. With that, Hans quickly sat down at his desk and started writing several encoded messages. He was fairly confident that at least one piece was in place and could be counted on to start sending reliable information. So he wrote up encoded instructions to that group first. The other two pieces would still take a bit of time to get in place yet. Hans knew that the other two groups would communicate as soon as they got to their assigned places. So far, everything is was coming along swimmingly.

Hans quickly finished up his instructions and got them attached to the homing pigeons and got the birds on their way.

"Well, well, so far things seem to be going relatively well for you, Hans," said a familiar voice behind him.

"Why, thank you Archiduke," Prince Hans said while bowing to the Archduke of Weasleton.

"Our spies in Arendelle report that Anna and Kristoff will be taking their children off to the ice mountain later today. However they are not going their directly. They seem to be making some stops along the way, but the spies were not able to discern where they would be stopping. Our spies heard that the family won't arrive at the ice palace until two days from now," the archduke reported.

"It doesn't really matter," Prince Hans said, "We won't start our plan until the family has been at the ice palace for a day or two. It will let them relax and put their guard down," Prince Hans said.

"Our spies also indicated that your father sent your brother Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman to check in on your on Neuvo Isle," the Archduke then reported.

"Prince Leif is a freak. He won't be a problem. Commodore Hyman might be more of a nuisance than anything," Prince Hans replied.

"I think that you underestimate Commodore Hyman," the Archduke replied rather harshly, "He has the absolute respect of every man in the Southern Isles navy. He is brilliant and has a way of putting things together rather quickly with little information."

"I will make sure to put some false trails in place to throw the Commodore off. He might find us, but by that point it will be too late to stop us. We will have the Arendelle throne securely in our control by that point," Prince Hans replied confidently.

"For your sake, I hope that you are right," the Archduke replied.

"Please tell me that you have all the resources coming," Prince Hans said.

"They are. Everything I promised you will be in place by the time you are ready to start the plan," the Archduke replied.

"Thank you. I will take care of keeping Hyman off of us. You just make sure that those resources are in place," Hans replied sternly.

With that Hans quickly got the first round of messages attached to the homing pigeons and got the birds on their way. Once the birds were on their ways, Hans then went to supervise the construction of the earthen defenses. There was much work to get done in a very short period of time. While he was watching the construction of the earthen defenses, the captain of his lead ship called out to Prince Hans.

"Your highness, your highness," the captain shouted.

"Yes, captain?" Prince Hans replied.

"You have a visitor, your highness," the captain stated.

"Who is the visitor, captain?" Hans asked.

"It is Vicktor," the captain replied.

"Ahhhh….. yes!" Hans said with a smile on his face, "Very well, bring him to my stateroom. Oh and captain…."

"Yes, your highness?" the captain replied.

"Please make sure that Viktor and I are not disturbed," Hans commanded.

"Yes your highness," Hans replied.

Hans then proceeded to his stateroom on the lead ship. As he entered, he saw a man sitting in his chair behind his desk.

"Excuse me, but shouldn't you be constructing the earthen defenses or should I have…." Hans started thinking the man was a member of the crew.

"I am not a member of this crew, Prince Hans," the man replied.

The man was dressed in blue tunic with trousers that were blue with red stripes. He had a red crown fleece hat and blue shoulder straps. As the man turned the chair around, Hans immediately recognized the man as Viktor, who was a Russian Cossack from the Don region.

"Please accept my apologies, Vicktor. I didn't recognize you at first," Hans said sincerely.

"Your apologies are accepted. Let's get to business, shall we?" Viktor replied, "I understand that you have a problem with a queen with certain abilities. Am I correct?"

"Yes and she should be considered extremely dangerous. The last time I was in Arendelle she caused an eternal winter. She supposedly has learned to control her powers, but I believe that she is as dangerous now as she was then. I also believe that she is a threat to everyone," Hans replied.

"I do remember hearing something about this winter that you spoke of. It snowed on end and the more upset the queen become the worse the storm," Viktor stated.

"And that is why I believe that she is such a danger. She may claim she has learned how to control her powers, but I believe that is a fallacy. She is still dangerous and needs to be dealt with to prevent such a thing from ever happening again," Hans said.

"What do you propose to do about it?" Viktor replied flatly.

"Well, I am glad you asked…..," Hans answered.

Hans then pulled out a map and put it on his desk. He and Viktor then started to discuss the plan in great detail. It would take nearly an hour to finish getting all the details sorted out.

"Hummm…. That might work. But answer me this Hans. Why not a direct assault on Arendelle itself?" the Cossack asked.

"My father was a good and close friend of the late king of Arendelle," Hans answered, "He has taken a fatherly view of Elsa. He acts the same way towards my late brother Erik and Leif. They were both freaks as well and yet he still protects them."

"What is the story about your brothers?" Viktor asked.

Hans took the time to explain some of the details of Erik and Leif's life and about Erik's abilities.

"So a direct assault would most likely result in a direct intervention by my father and I would rather avoid that. It is bad enough that he has ordered Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman to investigate Neuvo Isle," Hans explained.

"I see," Viktor said, "The price for the services of the Russian Cossacks is very high."

"I will make sure you that you get paid Viktor," Hans said as he stood up next to the wall of his stateroom, "The question is are you and men worth the price? Can you complete what I need you to complete?"

Quickly and silently, Viktor quickly removed a knife from his boot and threw it into the wall next to where Hans was standing. The knife missed Hans' head by less than an inch.

"You missed, Viktor," Hans replied.

"No, if I had missed Hans, the knife would be sticking out of your head," Viktor replied.

"Very well," Hans replied removing the knife from the wall.

"I want payment up front Hans before I assembly my men," Viktor stated with a sinister tone in his voice.

"I will pay you half up front and half after we are done, Viktor," Hans replied.

"I accept your terms. I will move men into position as soon as I get the half payment you promised," Viktor replied.

"I will take care of that right now. In the mean time, how long will it take you to deploy your men to the necessary positions?" Hans asked.

"You can count on everything being place in a week," Viktor replied.

"Perfect timing then," Hans replied, "Come Viktor, let's get your payment that I promised."

With that Viktor and Hans walked from Han's stateroom to the hold of the ship. It took a few minutes for Hans to find the necessary chest, but he finally pulled it out and opened it up in front of Viktor. In that chest was the half payment that Hans promised the Russian Cossack for the services of his Cossacks.

Viktor closely studied the chest and its contents. After doing a brief check of the entire contents of the chest and making sure that nothing was missing and all the contents were counted for, Viktor was satisfied.

"I will begin deploying my men to the positions you described. I will have them start sending you pigeons with regular updates as we get into position," Viktor stated.

"Very well, Viktor. It is a pleasure doing business with you," Hans answered.

With that, Hans quickly walked Viktor off the ship. For as effective as the Russian Cossacks were for the job that Hans just hired them for, they were very mercurial in their behavior. But, he thought, they are the best of the best for getting the type of jobs done that they needed to get done. With that Hans returned to supervise the construction of the fortifications for his base.

It would be mid-morning before Princess Anna and her family would be ready to leave. It was an absolute circus. Sophie and Colby were running around yelling and screaming and chasing Olaf the snowman. Sven was arguing with Kristoff over the weight of the sleigh and Elsa was busy re-assuring Anna that everything would be okay without Anna being in the Palace over the next week or so. With every thing so busy and noisy around the middle of the courtyard, no one noticed in one of the dark corners of the courtyard a hooded character sitting on a stool smoking a pipe and watching all the commotion. That particular corner was particular dark which made the character all the more invisible to people who were already not paying any attention to such details.

Eventually Anna and her family along with Olaf the snowman were completely loaded in the sleight and Sven was hitched up. Elsa was starting to wave the family off. In the meantime, the hooded character in the darkened corner continued to just sit there and watch the whole scene play out. Sitting there quietly, the character might as well as been invisible to the world. It would not be until Anna and her family finally got under way and Elsa returned to her chambers that the character got up and started to walk away. Since no had had noticed him before, no really paid much attention to him as he walked out of the gate and quickly out of the town of Arendelle. The hooded character kept walking to the edge of the forest on the outside of the two. From there, the character then took two strips of paper and encoded two messages, a different one on each strip of paper. The first message was attached to one homing pigeon and the second message on a second homing pigeon. The character then released the birds and then quickly returned to Arendelle to lurk once again in the shadows. For the entire time that the man was moving, no one even noticed the movement or if anyone was even there.


	5. Chapter 5 - Setting the Traps

Setting the Traps

The bird arrived very swiftly. A hooded man shrouded in a white hood and cloak reached up and took hold of the bird and then got the message detached from the bird. After spending a few minutes decoding the message, the man put the bird back in its cage.

They are on their way thought the man. With that he quickly pulled his hood over his head and put on his snowshoes. There was still a lot of snow cover where the man was operating so with his white clothes, cape and hood he was virtually invisible to anyone who did not know he was there. The man quickly started to make tracks towards the ridge overlooking Arendelle and pulled out his spy glasses. Looking down into the valley he could see the sleigh carrying Kristoff, Anna and their children starting to pull out of the town and towards the mountain. Given their pace, they should be there in about 2 hours thought the man as he settled into a position where he could watch the royal family in their travels without being seen.

The family's slow speed would be useful. It would allow the hooded man to stay within a reasonable range of the sleigh without being seen. This was imperative for the mission to succeed. Eventually the sleigh carrying the royal family would pass near where the hooded man was laying. In order to disguise his position, the color of the cape and hood matched the bright white of the snow. By keeping his head down, the family didn't even know that he was there.

The hooded character didn't want to get up right away to start trailing the family but didn't want to wait too long. The hooded character waited for 30 minutes after the family had passed before getting up and starting to trail the path taken by the sleigh. The sky was clear and with no incoming weather it would be relatively easy to pick up on the trail taken by the sleigh. Soon enough the man was able to keep the sleigh in sight but at a safe enough distance that he would not be easily detectable by the family if they glanced backwards.

"Are we there yet, Papa?" Sophie asked her father for the 15th time since leaving Arendelle.

"No, Sophie. We won't be there for a few days. Plus we have to make a few stops. Remember we are stopping to see the trolls. Don't you want to see Grand Pappi and Bulda again?" Kristoff asked his daughter.

"Of course Papa, but I can't wait to see the ice palace!" Sophie squealed.

Kristoff laughed at his daughter's excitement.

"We should be reaching the trolls soon," Anna said excitedly.

"YAY!" shouted the children and Olaf.

"How long do you think it will take to reach the trolls, mama?" Colby asked.

"We should be there before lunch time," Anna replied.

The children loved visiting the trolls and especially playing with the little ones. As the family got closer to the trolls, the louder the children got. There were a number of times that Kristoff told them to quiet down but after a while he just forgot about it. At no time during their journey did the family ever suspect they were being followed.

"Well, well…. Kristoff is back!" shouted a very familiar voice.

It was Bulda and she was excited to see Kristoff and the family.

"Nice to see you Bulda," Kristoff replied.

The children squealed and ran to hug Bulda. As the children and Bulda hugged each other, Bulda suddenly tensed up.

"What's wrong Bulda?" Colby asked.

"Shhhhh…." Bulda said putting a finger to her lips, "Something dangerous is out there."

Kristoff, Anna and the children looked as far as they could see. All they could see was snow. The hooded character realized what was going on though.

"Trolls!" he thought, "They have the ability to detect invisible things, but only up close." The hooded character knew that he would have to observe the family at a slightly larger distance back in order to avoid being detected by the trolls. It was imperative that he not be detected. Slowly and carefully the man snuck back several yards further back from the family.

"The danger has passed now," Bulda finally relayed after staring at the horizon for a while.

"Is there something we should know about Bulda?" Anna asked worriedly.

"No, no dear. Everything is fine. Let's go celebrate your arrival," Bulda replied as she led the family to the troll gathering.

Prince Leif and the Southern Isles flotilla had been out three days when they ran into the first Arendelle frigate. Needless a ship as large as the Mjolnir would cause some alarm on the part of the Arendelle navy and the frigate quickly closed in intercept the flotilla.

Being well aware of the political sensitivities between the two nations, Commodore Hyman quickly ordered a slow down of all ships and to make sure that all gun ports were closed. Additionally the crews of all three ships were ordered to stand down.

"Hail!" the captain of the Arendelle frigate shouted as it closed along side the Mjolnir.

"Hail!" Prince Leif shouted back.

While Commodore Hyman was the military officer in charge of the ships, this mission was still a diplomatic mission and Prince Leif was in charge of that mission. However the presence of Commodore Hyman on the bridge was no hindrance. In fact, Commodore Hyman was such a world renowned naval officer that his presence helped lend credence to the diplomatic mission.

"What would a group of three Southern Isle warships be doing in Arendelle territory?" the captain asked.

"We are on a diplomatic mission to Arendelle and need to speak to Queen Elsa at once," Prince Leif responded.

"And who might you be?" the captain asked.

"I am Prince Leif, son of King Henriken of the Southern Isles. The naval officer next to me is Commodore Hyman of his majesty's navy," Prince Leif responded.

"The Queen does not want to have anything to do with the Southern Isles," the captain responded.

"Maybe or maybe not, but I still must see the Queen," Prince Leif responded.

"Why should we allow you to see her after what your brother tried to do to her?" the captain asked.

"The Queen of Arendelle has not officially informed the King of the Southern Isles of the cut off of diplomatic relations with the Southern Isles. So unless that has changed in the past few days, please provide us safe passage to Arendelle," Prince Leif replied.

The captain of the Arendelle was forced to agree that no such orders had been presented to the Arendelle navy and then agreed to give them safe passage to Arendelle.

"I must forewarn you, your highness, that her majesty Queen Elsa might not want to have any contact with the Southern Isles," the captain replied.

"I consider myself warned, Captain," Prince Leif answered.

The frigate pulled along side the Mjolnir and proceeded to give the flotilla safe passage to Arendelle.

The sight of the flotilla arriving in Arendelle caused quite the stir. The Mjolnir easily dwarfed any of the Arendelle naval ships in the harbor. For as imposing as the Mjolnir was in the harbor, most of the naval officers and crews we re actually looking at Commodore Hyman as he and Prince Leif arrived in Arendelle. The two men were escorted to the gates of the castle.

If the reception at sea was an indicator of just how chilly the reception they were going to receive, then it was way off. The guard simply refused to grant admittance to the Prince or the Commodore to meet with the Queen.

"I am carrying a diplomatic letter on behalf of my father for the Queen. This letter has a great deal of urgency to it. Please see to it that the Queen is notified of my presence," Prince Leif tried to explain as patiently as he could.

"All Southern Isle folk are scum," the guard replied, "The Queen has ordered that no one from the Southern Isles should be admitted to the castle."

"By whose orders to do you refuse admittance to the castle?" Commodore Hyman asked rather testily.

"How dare you sir question my orders sir," the guard replied angrily.

"My father has not been informed of a severance of diplomatic relations with Arendelle," Prince Leif began.

"I could care less what your father has been informed of sir," the guard replied as he cut him off.

Both Leif and Hyman were irritated by the rudeness of the guard's reply. Despite the rudeness, they kept arguing their point with the guard for nearly an hour.

"Sirs, if you do not leave the gates of the castle, I will have you arrested and taken to the dungeon," the guard replied.

This reply, of course, infuriated both the Commodore and Prince Leif.

"I do believe that taking a legitimate diplomatic representative of the Southern Isles would cause a major diplomatic issue for her majesty, do you not think so?" Prince Leif asked the guard.

"That is not of my concern," the guard replied.

By now both Commodore Hyman and Leif were strongly discouraged.

"Come on, your highness. We will try again tomorrow," the Commodore said.

By no Prince Leif was in no mode to argue and both men returned to the Mjolnir dejected.

Over the next three days, Anna, Kristoff and the children had a grand time playing and having fun with the trolls. Anna and Kristoff hadn't felt this relaxed in a long time. As much fun as the family was having with the trolls though, they knew that they were going to have to move along to their next destination. Kristoff was able to get the sleigh packed up again and ready to go fairly quickly and the family was soon ready to go.

Whereas it was Bulda who greeted them when they arrived, Grand Pabbi and Bulda took the family to the path towards their next destination. Suddenly Grand Pappi tensed up.

"What's wrong Grand Pabbi?" Kristoff asked.

"Shhhhh….." Grand Pabbi replied.

Grand Pabbi was staring long and hard at the road ahead and behind them. Just as Grand Pabbi started starting Bulda started to tense up too and like Grand Pabbi was staring intently at the horizon. Both trolls would be like this for nearly 10 minutes. The trolls staring was starting to freak out both Sophie and Colby.

"Papa, what's wrong with Grand Pabbi and Bulda?" asked Colby.

"I don't know son. I haven't seen them do this before," Kristoff replied to his son.

It was at that time that both trolls eased up but not by much.

"There is danger nearby Kristoff. You and your family should be on your way now," Grand Pabbi said.

"What sort of danger are we facing?" Anna asked with a sudden tone of worry in her voice.

"We cannot tell," Bulda replied, "But something is out there. Be very careful and do not delay getting to your next stop."

Now both Anna and Kristoff were kind of concerned by what they were seeing and hearing.

"Grand Pabbi, it is still early morning. The wolves of the forest won't be out until after dark. We will be at our next destination by lunch time," Kristoff said.

"There are other dangers out there beyond wolves, Kristoff," Grand Pabbi said gravely, "I can't see it, but something is hunting you."

"We will be safe, won't we mama?" Sophie asked now getting quite scared.

"Of course we will, dear," Anna said re-assuring her daughter, "Mama and Papa will take some extra precautions to make sure that we are safe for the remainder of our trip. Plus once we get to the ice palace, we will have Marshmallow there to protect us."

Both Sophie and Colby were felt better about know that Marshmallow would be around at the ice palace. That fact alone made the children felt immensely better.

"Well Grand Pabbi," Kristoff said, "We need to be off. We will stop by on our way back to Arendelle."

"Be careful out there Kristoff," Grand Pabbi and Bulda replied in unison.

With that, Kristoff got Sven underway. About that time Olaf started singing various songs with the children to help them get their spirits up after the very scary moments with Grand Pabbi and Bulda. Soon the spirits of the family were once again soaring as they were well underway to their next destination. The family were so engrossed with each other that none of the family noticed a man dressed all in white with a white hood and cape near the horizon stand up and start tracking the family as they travelled to their next destination. Danger was coming.

It would be several hours again before Prince Leif would try again to get admittance to the castle. By this time there was a changing of the guard and hopefully this time the Prince and Commodore could get admittance to at least see the queen. If he was hoping that his next encounter with the palace guards would go any better than the last time, his hopes were quickly dashed.

"I am sorry sir, but the queen will not entertain any fools from the Southern Isles," the guard replied when asked for an audience with the queen.

By now Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman had been arguing with his particular guard now for 30 minutes and they were both extremely exasperated. This guard even went so far to get another guard who was just as rude and belligerent and the other two guards.

Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman were about to give up for the day when Kai was walking by and overheard the argument between the guards and the two men.

"Excuse me, but I can't help but over hearing the heated discussion between you and the guards," Kai said, "What seems to be the problem here?"

"My name is Prince Leif. I am on a diplomatic mission from the Southern Isles on behalf of my father. I need to see the queen and I have a letter of marque from my father, King Henriken of the Southern Isles. For some reason the guards seem to think that the queen has cut off diplomatic relations with the Southern Isles but my father was never notified before we left," Prince Leif explained yet again.

"I see. May I see this letter of marque?" Kai asked.

Prince Leif presented the steward the letter from his father. Kai carefully studied the letter. After he was finished with the letter, Kai returned it to Prince Leif.

"So why do you want to see the Queen?" Kai asked.

"We believe that Prince Hans has escaped his prison and had help doing so. We believe that he is heading straight to Arendelle with the intent of seizing the throne," Prince Leif responded.

"And what evidence do you have to support this claim?" Kai asked skeptically.

"The loss of a Southern Isle frigate, the death of 60 men guarding Prince Hans, and the death of a Southern Isle prince investigating suspicious activity on the island where Hans was being held," Prince Leif responded.

"Your evidence sounds very flimsy and weak," Kai responded, "I don't think that the Queen will meet with you unless you can present stronger evidence."

"Look here!" Commodore Hyman started, "King Henriken was never informed that diplomatic relations between the Southern Isles and Arendelle were severed. So why should we jump through flaming hoops to see the queen when we are trying to save her throne?"

"You have read my father's letter. In that letter he explicitly requests an audience with the queen. Unless Arendelle can show me where diplomatic relations between our countries has been severed, I want my audience with Queen Elsa," Prince Leif demanded.

"Very well. Let me go talk to the queen and get an audience setup for tomorrow," Kai replied.

It was frustrating that they would have to wait another day, but at least they were making progress towards meeting with the queen at last. Kai told the two men to wait at the gates and he would be back as soon as he could with when to return to meet with the queen.

Kai was concerned. On the one hand, the evidence the men had presented so far was rather circumstantial. However Hans was very devious and he was extremely treacherous in how he dealt with Anna and Elsa. Who knew exactly what depth of treachery he could be up to. This whole thing with Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman could be a ruse. The problem with that though is that Commodore Hyman is virtually revered throughout every naval force in the world, including the Arendelle navy and King Henriken has been honorable in his dealings with Arendelle in the past. Ultimately the decision would rest with Queen Elsa. Kai wasn't sure that she would even meet with Prince Leif. Kai knocked at the private study of the queen.

"Come!" Elsa replied to the knock.

"Pardon me, your majesty," Kai began, "I can only imagine that you would not want to meet them. But there is a Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman from the Southern Isles who claim to be on a diplomatic mission from their father and King, Henriken of the Southern Isles."

King Henriken was a close friend of her own father and Elsa knew this. She was also well aware of Commodore Hyman's reputation. But Prince Leif was a mystery to her. Elsa has been briefed on all of the Southern Isle princes but two of them. One of the princes nearly had her killed. She hoped that he was still rotting away in his prison somewhere. But in all her discussions between her father and herself regarding the members of the various royal families of Europe, she never heard him mention Prince Leif. It was very strange.

"Very well, I will meet with them," Queen Elsa replied.

"Are you sure, your majesty? After all that Prince Hans did to you and Anna during your coronation, I would think that you might take some caution in your dealings with the Southern Isles, your majesty," Kai said with a deal of concern.

"Kai, I understand your concern. However King Henriken was a close and personal friend of my father. His father did not condone Hans' behavior. I have no reason to sever diplomatic relations with the Southern Isles yet," Queen Elsa replied, "Besides if they give me reason to be concerned then I will hold back. If King Henriken sent Commodore Hyman then the mission is most likely legitimate. But I will make sure before I take any actions."

"Very well, your majesty. What time should I tell the gentlemen to come back to meet with you? They said the matter was quite urgent, but I told them that you should be available tomorrow," Kai asked.

"No need to make them wait. Send them to my private study and I will meet with them," Queen Elsa replied.

"Very well your majesty," Kai replied as he turned to walk back to the guard gate.

It would take Kai nearly 30 minutes before Kai returned to the main guard gate of the castle.

"We thought you had abandoned us," Prince Leif muttered before being elbowed by Commodore Hyman.

"You are lucky that the queen is in a good mood today. She will meet with you now gentlemen. Please follow me," Kai said in a tone that let them know that he did not agree with the decision but was following the queen's decision.

It would be mid-afternoon when Kristoff and Anna and the kids would arrive at the Wondering Oaken Trade Post (and Sauna). By now, Sophie was starting to complain about getting cold and it was indeed getting colder. When asked by her father why she hadn't dressed warmer, Sophie explained that she was expecting it to be warm all the way to the ice palace.

"Sweetie, how do you think that the ice palace remains an ice palace?" Kristoff asked his daughter incredulously.

"I didn't know," Sophie whined.

"Well, we did get to our second stop anyways Kristoff," Anna said cheerfully.

"I guess your are right. Everyone off while I get the sleigh secured," Kristoff said.

"Now Sophie," Anna started, "Let's find some warm clothes for you."

After nearly 15 minutes of searching her luggage, Anna was exasperated with her daughter.

"Sophie, I know that we packed some cold weather clothes for you," Anna said.

"I took them out, mama," the young princess said.

"You what?" Anna and Kristoff exclaimed with a great deal of surprise.

"I took them out. I figured it was as warm as it was in Arendelle and took the cold weather clothes out," Sophie replied matter of factly.

"Sweetie, the ice palace would melt if it was warm on North Mountain," Anna explained to her four-year-old daughter.

"Ohhh…." Sophie said suddenly realizing that perhaps she should let the staff pack her clothes for her in the future.

"Well, never mind. Hopefully Oaken has some winter clothes in supply," Anna said.

The last time she had to buy winter supplies from Oaken, her sister had created an eternal winter on the land and the winter supplies as Oaken was "limited" was the best was to describe it. With the cold weather season starting, Anna was hopeful that there would be a bit more cold weather clothing in stock this time then there was last time.

As fortune would have it, Anna and Sophie were in luck. There were more winter clothing in stock at Oaken's than the last time that she shopped here. Of course, Sophie was being a typical four-year-old and trying to be picky about what clothes her mother was trying to buy for her. But as Anna explained to Sophie, when you don't properly prepare then you cannot be choosy as to what your mother buys for you. Kristoff could only chuckle as he watched his wife argue with his daughter.

Kristoff picked up a few winter supplies of his own, including a new ice pick and some carrots for Sven as well as rope. Unlike the last time he was here, Kristoff was not getting thrown out of Wondering Oaken this time. Anna and Kristoff quickly gathered up their stuff and paid for the clothes and supplies and headed out the door to the shed. While the family could have could have made the ice palace that day, it was getting dark. Anna and Kristoff remembered the last time that they made that trip after dark and their encounters with wolves while on their way to the ice palace. Neither the princess nor her husband were willing to to take the risk this time with their children in tow. So the family bunkered down in the stable just outside of Wondering Oaken Trade Post (and Sauna).

"Ewwww….. Why would anyone stay in the stable?" Sophie asked as she crinkled her nose.

"Mama and Papa met for the first time here," Colby replied.

"You might want to apologize to Sven, Sophie," Kristoff admonished his daughter.

Sven was giving Sophie the "Oh Brother" stare and bleated "What's your problem?"

"Sorry Sven," Sophie said as she hugged her father's reindeer.

Sven then bleated a "That's alright."

"Mama, can you please tell us how you and Papa met again?" Colby asked.

"I don't know. It is awfully late and I know some kids who need to get some sleep," Anna replied.

"Pleeeeassse…" both Sophie and Colby replied in unison.

"Very well," Anna replied as she started retelling the story of how she and Kristoff met and fell in love.

At the end of the story, both of the children were asleep.

Anna, Kristoff and the children were so preoccupied by their journey that no one saw the man dressed in white with a white cape and hood who was tracking their movements during the day. Of course, the man was taking care to be very careful to make sure that he wasn't seen. But he also taking the time to set various traps along the path that they took. It was important that everything be in place for everything to work they were supposed to.

As the family was settling in for the night, the white hooded man quickly wrote an encoded message. Everything up to that point was in place and the last piece would be in place by the next day. He then took the encoded message and attached it to a homing pigeon was carrying in a cage next to his pack. Once the message was attached, he sent the bird on its way. He then settled down for the night and started preparing for the next phase of the plan.


	6. Chapter 6 - Springing the Trap

Springing the Trap

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Queen Elsa addressed the two men sitting before her in her private study.

"Good afternoon, your majesty!" the two men replied in unison.

"I have heard many stories of your exploits and reputation, Commodore Hyman. However I have yet to hear anything about you, Prince Leif. I have heard of all of your other brothers. One of them nearly had me killed," Queen Elsa said rather icily.

"That wouldn't really surprise me much, your majesty. My twin and I were rather isolated from the rest of the world actually," Prince Leif replied.

"Oh?" Else asked with a raised eyebrow, "And why would that be?"

"My twin brother was Prince Erik. He had some abilities that concerned my father. I have shown no tendencies for these abilities, however. But since Erik was my twin my father felt that it was more important that we be isolated from the world," Prince Leif replied.

"And what sort of abilities would those be?" the Queen asked with a mix of sympathy and annoyance at the prince.

"If you don't mind your majesty, I would rather not discuss that at this time," Prince Leif replied hoping to avoid having a discussion about his brother and his special abilities at the time.

"Then why would your father send you to Arendelle then to discuss such an urgent matter with me then?" the queen asked rather testily.

At this point, Commodore Hyman jumped in.

"Your majesty, the issue that brings us to Arendelle is Prince Hans," Commodore Hyman replied.

Elsa tensed up at the mention of Prince Hans. The last time she dealt with Prince Hans he was standing over her with his sword over his shoulder ready to execute her for treason. At the time, Elsa was ready to die as she thought Anna was dead by her hand. That was then.

"Is Prince Hans not in a cell in the Southern Isles?" Queen Elsa asked.

"No, your majesty. Originally King Henriken sentenced him to death. It was by the intervention of Hans' mother and brother, Prince Erik, that saved his life. He was sent to exile on Neuvo Isle and stripped of all wealth and privilege," Commodore Hyman replied.

Elsa glared at Commodore Hyman. Elsa heard of Neuvo Isle and knew that it was a very remote island. It was difficult to travel there but the same remoteness was the same reason it was highly favored by smugglers.

"So explain to me then Commodore why would Prince Hans bring you back to Arendelle, especially with the Mjolnir?" Elsa asked rather testily.

Queen Elsa was well aware of the amount of firepower that the Mjolnir brought to the table. The Mjolnir was considered one of the most powerful warships in the world. Very few ships could match the firepower of the Mjolnir and for all practical purposes none of the Arendelle naval vessels could.

"Your majesty, we found evidence the Prince Hans was smuggling weapons and other items on Neuvo Isle. When a task force with Prince Erik was sent to investigate, the HMS Anderson, which carried Prince Erik to Neuvo Isle, came under attack from someone. There was also a ground assault. At least 50 Southern Isle soldiers guarding Prince Erik, 10 Southern Isle marines escorting Prince Erik and Prince Erik himself were killed in the assault. Prince Hans was nowhere to be found. We found the cave where we think Prince Hans was hiding the smuggled goods but there was nothing there. We found strong evidence of weapons being there but nothing was there. We have to assume that Prince Hans has escaped and is on his way to Arendelle," Commodore Hyman replied, "We have come to hunt down Prince Hans and return him to the Southern Isles."

"What evidence do you have that Hans is in Arendelle?" Queen Elsa replied.

"We have nothing concrete to give you, your majesty," Prince Leif replied.

"So you want me to allow a heavily armed warship with a large contingent of marines and soldiers in Arendelle territory to hunt for someone you think is coming here?" Queen Elsa asked testily, "Why should I trust you or anyone else from the Southern Isles? I know that you are a highly respected naval officer Commodore Hyman, even by my own naval forces. But I have never heard of you Prince Leif and you expect me to take you at your word?"

"Your majesty, I completely understand your feelings of mistrust of the Southern Isles, especially after your last encounter with Prince Hans. However I must beg that you allow us to stay in your harbor while you consider our proposition. If Hans has come and has significant reinforcements, then we can at least provide some assistance. I know that it is a lot to ask, but I will make sure that the crews of all the ships and marines are completely standing down," the Commodore requested.

Queen Elsa was not sure what to think about the request. On the one hand, it would not take much for the crews to gear up to attack Arendelle. On the other hand though, Commodore Hyman was considered one of the most honorable naval officers in the world and when he gave his word he kept it. After several minutes of consideration and only because it was Commodore Hyman was making the request, Queen Elsa agreed to the request.

"Commodore, if I see any signs of your crew preparing for war on Arendelle will be dealt with accordingly by my forces. Am I clear?" Queen Elsa asked rather testily.

"As crystal, your majesty. Any man on the ships who takes an action against Arendelle will be flogged by me personally," the Commodore answered.

With that commitment, the two men returned to the Mjolnir only slightly less depressed than before. Every day that Hans was allowed to go free, the more danger that Arendelle was in.

Queen Elsa was divided. One the one hand she didn't know what to make of the warning that the two men had brought her. One part of her didn't trust the Southern Isles, especially after the events of her coronation. Another part of her wanted to go up and warn her sister of the threat. As much as Elsa tried to put the whole conversation out of her mind, she found it impossible to do so. She quickly sat down to write out a message to Anna. Maybe if Anna was forewarned she could be careful and not do anything too rash. After finishing her letter, she went to quickly find her steward.

"Kai," she began.

"Your majesty," Kai replied as he bowed before his queen, "I hope that you were able to put the men from the Southern Isles back in their place."

"Maybe, but they brought me a warning that I find that I cannot ignore. Please arrange a messenger to take a message to Princess Anna at the ice palace. The family is due to arrive there today."

"It will absolutely be done, your majesty," as Kai took the letter from the queen, "I will send our most trusted messenger at once."

"Thank you Kai. I trust that this will be done quickly," Elsa replied as she turned away to turn her attention to other matters.

It would be nearly an hour before the messenger would be off from the palace ground. As the messenger started to turn north out of the town towards North Mountain, three homing pigeons flew up and overhead. The birds were small and innocuous enough that most people didn't pay them any attention. However Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif were watching the messenger leave towards North Mountain. While they were watching the scene, the birds most certainly attracted the attention of both Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif. Both men knew now that Hans was in Arendelle and that the traps were already laid.

Kristoff and Anna and the kids quickly woke up after a restful night sleep in the stables of Wondering Oaken Trade Post (and Sauna). Kristoff was able to start hitching up Sven to the sleigh while Anna got out some scones that had been prepared by the palace kitchen staff earlier that week.

"YAY! We go to the ice palace today! Finally!" squealed Colby and Sophie in unison.

Both children were absolutely excited and the enthusiasm of the children was rubbing off on the parents and the day was already starting on a much higher note than the previous day had.

After everyone had eaten their quick breakfast of scones, Kristoff hitched up Sven to the sleigh and the family climbed aboard. Once again no one in the family noticed a white hooded character standing on the edge of the woods between the light and darker areas of the woods. The character simply watched as the sleigh carrying the royal family finally pulled away from the trading post and towards the ice castle. Once again as the sleigh carried the family towards their ultimate destination, the hooded man started to track the family at a distance. The family was in such good spirits that no one even noticed the man tracking them.

It would be about noon when the family finally arrived at the ice palace. By now the kids were absolutely ecstatic to finally be at the ice palace.

"WOW!" Colby shouted out.

"Be careful there, Colby," Kristoff said to his son, "Mama needs let Marshmallow know that we are here."

"Who is Marshmallow?" Colby asked.

Minutes later, the snow monster formed in front of Anna. It took Marshmallow a few minutes to recognize Anna but he eventually recognized Anna. Before the family took the trip to the ice palace Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff travelled to the ice palace to make sure that Marshmallow was okay with them staying in the ice palace. Additionally Elsa had to make some repairs to the palace after Both Anna and Kristoff felt more comfortable knowing that the snow monster would be looking out for them rather than trying to chase them off the side of the mountain this time. After letting Marshmallow getting to know the rest of the family, Anna, Kristoff and the children entered the ice palace.

"WOW!" Colby said again rather loudly.

Colby was amazed by the ice structures that he saw inside the palace.

"This is amazing, papa!" Colby exclaimed.

"It sure is," Kristoff replied to his son.

Even though it was not the first time he saw the ice palace, the sight of the palace and what was in it always did amaze him. Kristoff had worked with ice all of his life but nothing he had seen ever compared to the beauty of the ice palace.

"Kristoff," said a familiar voice, which brought him out of his reverie.

"Oh sorry, Anna," Kristoff replied as he hurried to help his wife carry a load from the sleigh.

Kristoff and Anna quickly unloaded the rest of the sleigh and unhitched Sven from the sleigh so he could rest. Meanwhile Colby, Sophie, and Olaf were squealing and running around the ice palace excitedly. After unloading the sleigh, Kristoff and Anna relaxed and watched amusedly over their children. The whole family was in a very lighthearted mood and in very good spirits, so no one noticed a shadowy figure in on the edge of the woods near the palace watching. Nor did they notice when a small homing pigeon flew up and away from the ice palace.

The messenger from Queen Elsa was quickly galloping past a ridge that was overlooking Arendelle. The ridge was covered with snow and was fairly bright. As the messenger passed close to the right, a man dressed in white was lying on the snow raised his crossbow and took careful aim but did not fire yet. The man laid very still and didn't move a muscle. As the messenger passed close by, the man pulled the trigger.

"Agggghhhhhhh…" the messenger screamed as the arrow pierced his shoulder.

The sudden noise and movement startled his horse causing the horse to start bucking. Between his serious wound and the bucking horse, the messenger fell off his horse. The fall aggravated the wound even worse and now the messenger was struggling to stay on his feet. The messenger quickly looked up at the ridge and saw two men in white with one of them holding a crossbow. The second man in white was holding something but the messenger couldn't tell what. The messenger quickly ran for the woods to try to get some cover. As the messenger ran, the second man in white, who was holding wolves on leashes, released the dogs. The dogs quickly started chasing the messenger. After about five minutes, there was a loud scream of fear and terror that came from the woods followed quickly by silence. The men in white disappeared as quickly as they appeared.

"Well, well, I must say that things seem to be progressing well," the archduke of Weasleton said to Hans as he walked up to the Prince.

"Things are almost ready," Prince Hans began.

"Ahem," began a sound behind the prince and archduke. The two men turned around and saw Viktor coming up behind them.

"Ahh, Viktor," the archduke Wealton responded, "How nice to see you again."

"Yes,"Viktor replied dourly.

"The princess and her family have arrived at the ice palace. I hope that you have everything in place for you to do your part, Prince Hans. My men will be leaving to get the children in the morning," Viktor said.

"Viktor, make sure that those children arrive here alive and unharmed," Prince Hans said.

"As you wish," Viktor replied icily and he turned and walked away.

No matter how highly recommended he was, Hans was a bit freaked out by Viktor. The Russian Cossacks have always been somewhat mercurial by nature. Controlling them have been very difficult to do. Even the archduke was initially nervous about bringing them in when first presented Han's plans. However as far as getting dirty work done, there was no one better for the job. Russian Cossacks were well known for doing things that many other men would not do. Even with all the reservations regarding Elsa, the thought of going after a sitting monarch would churn the stomachs of many. That would not be an issue with the Russian Cossacks. The only problem that that Hans and the archduke would have would be to control the Cossaks. Regardless of his reservations, things were now in motion which could not be stopped. Within a few weeks, Hans hoped to have the kingdom of Arendelle under his control and have himself named king.

Kristoff and Anna and the children were thoroughly having fun at the ice palace. The children were running around and screaming and having an absolute blast. The family had now been at the ice castle for nearly 2 days. Despite having been at the palace for a couple of days now, both Kristoff and Colby were still in absolute awe of what Elsa had done.

The family only had 2 more days before they were to head back to Arendelle. This particular morning Anna and Kristoff wanted to sleep a little longer while the children went off and played. With Marshmallow watching over them and Olaf there to play with the children, the two parents slept gently and got some additional rest for the hike the family had planned later that day.

"Hey wake up! Wake up Colby," Sophie said excitedly.

"Sophie, it is too early. Go back to sleep," Colby replied.

"I can't the sky is awake and I have to be awake," Sophie replied.

Colby had heard this before and knew that he was not going to win this battle but kept trying anyways. Sophie started jumping on him at which point, Colby simply pushed his sister off of him.

"Hey! You want to build a snowman?" Sophie asked excitedly.

Both Colby and Sophie enjoyed making snowmen and both woke up at that point and went outside to play. Even though their parents were still asleep, Marshmallow was outside. When Elsa did the repairs on the ice castle, she asked Marshmallow to provide protection for anyone who stayed at the castle. It was re-assuring to both Anna and Elsa that whenever they stayed at the castle, that there was a friendly set of eyes watching out for them.

"What do you want to call our snowman?" Sophie asked.

"How about Olette so Olaf can have a friend?" Colby answered.

"Ooooooo…. I like that," Olaf chimed in.

"Of course, Aunt Elsa isn't here so we will have to wait before Olette can come to life. Maybe we find find what Olette likes in the meantime," Sophie said excitedly.

Sophie and Colby were so busy playing outside that they did not notice a group of men sneaking up on them.

"Well, well, what do we have here? It certainly looks like we have a Prince and Princess of Arendelle," sneered one of the men.

"Who are you and what do you want?" asked Prince Colby who instinctively put Sophie behind him in an attempt to protect her.

"It doesn't matter who we are or where we are from. All that it matters is that you come with us quietly and no one gets hurt," said the man.

At that point, Colby and Sophie started to run towards the ice castle.

"Seize them!" yelled the man to the others in the group.

Colby was the first to be grabbed. At this point, Sophie let loose a blood curdling scream.

"Marshmallow, help!" screamed Colby who was kicking and screaming hard at this point.

The scream and yell for help was enough to grab the attention of Marshmallow. When Marshmallow saw what going on, he yelled an extraordinarily loud battle scream. Two of the men grabbed spears and started throwing them at Marshmallow. At that point, Marshmallow yelled an even more ferocious battle yell.

Between the blood curdling screen and Marshmallow's ferocious yells, both Anna and Kristoff were fully awake and running frantically towards the front door of the ice castle. In the meantime, a mighty battle between Marshmallow and nearly two dozen men had begun. In the ensuring battle, another man quickly snatched Sophie up. Despite being outnumbered 24 to 1, Marshmallow was doing quick well for himself. By this point in the battle, Anna and Kristoff had reached the front door of the ice castle and saw the battle going on. At this point, there was no stopping Kristoff. Kristoff began engaging men wherever he could. Sven and Olaf were also doing there part.

"Let go of me you bad man!" yelled Colby all while kicking and biting where he could.

By this time, Sophie saw her mama and papa and started to scream "Help me mama!"

One man tried was taking aim at Kristoff with his cross bow when Sven ran into him with his antlers and pushed him deep into a snow pile. Olaf kept tripping men and causing them to fall while Marshmallow kept pushing the men further and further back from the ice castle. Kristoff fought hard to try to reach his children, but the men who had grabbed Sophie and Colby were clearly running back from where they came and the other men were simply trying to slow down Anna and Kristoff along with attempting to contain Marshmallow as best as they could.

After nearly an hour of fierce fighting between Marshmallow, Anna, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf, one of the men called, "We have what we came for. Fall back! Fall back!"

The men began to retreat from where they came. Kristoff quickly jumped on Sven and tried to follow the men, but the men split up. Eventually Sven and Kristoff came to a wall where they saw that the men had repelled down and even took the time to cut the rope when they were finished. It was impossible to follow them. So Sven and Kristoff returned to the ice castle where Kristoff found his wife crying loudly.

"Those men took our children!" Anna screamed.

Kristoff, Marshmallow, Olaf and Sven knew that the men had targeted the children first. At this point, they had no idea who the men were, where they came from or why they took the children. But everyone knew that the recovery of the children was the primary goal now.

"I am going after those men," Anna said with a tone of a mother's fury in her voice.

Kristoff knew that arguing with his wife on this point was going to be useless. "You are not going alone. Who knows who took our children, but I won't let you go alone. However we need to raise the alarm in Arendelle with your sister," Kristoff replied with a sense of urgency.

Anna knew that Kristoff was right. She loved that she could depend on Kristoff being right there with her in the middle of her most terrifying moments. She remembered the time she was nearly frozen solid and Kristoff had come back for Anna to try to save her. Kristoff held his wife for several minutes to help calm her down. Right now Anna was a complete mess.

Kristoff knew that the one who could reach Arendelle the fastest and communicate directly with Elsa was Olaf.

"Olaf, I need you to return to Arendelle at once and raise the alarm with Elsa. I need you to go right now!" Kristoff commanded the snowman.

"Right away," Olaf responded quickly.

With that Kristoff turned away to continue to calm his wife down. In the meantime, Olaf started sliding down the mountain towards Arendelle and raising the alarm with Queen Elsa.


	7. Chapter 7 - Danger Abounds

Chapter 5 Danger Abounds

"Let's go Kristoff!" Anna yelled at her husband.

"Do you really think that is a good idea Anna? We have no idea who those guys were. We have no idea what they want or why they took the children," Kristoff began.

"Kristoff, they took our son and daughter and I intend to go after them," Anna said with a sense of defiance in her voice.

Kristoff knew that he wasn't going to win this argument and in the back of his mind, he agreed with Anna. Kristoff knew that they needed to get started fairly quickly in order to have any hope of keeping up with the men who took their children. After grabbing a few supplies from the ice palace, Kristoff got the sleigh packed up and Sven hooked up the sleigh.

While Kristoff was finishing up, Anna was looking over the footprints of the men who took their children. The footprints lead off towards the direction of the coast. Anna wondered if the men had sailed up here and bypassed Arendelle to come snatch her children. In many ways, Anna didn't care. She wanted her children back. While Kristoff finished up packing up the sleigh, Anna gave instructions to Marshmallow to direct anyone from Arendelle to heads toward the coast to find them. Shortly after she finished up with Marshmallow, Kristoff was finished and ready to go. It had barely been an hour after the attack and Kristoff wasn't sure he had everything but both he and Anna had a tremendous sense of urgency to start the search for their children.

With that, Kristoff got Sven moving being very careful to follow the footprints that the men left. Once the men had the children, they were not very careful to conceal their tracks and Kristoff and Sven were able to easily follow the men. The real problem was of course that the mean who actually held the children had left the first before the rest of the men. So the children were already well ahead of Anna and Kristoff. Still Anna wasn't going to let that stop her from going after her children. It did not take long for Anna and Kristoff to find the same cliff that the couple went over during Arendelle's eternal winter. Along the side of the cliff were several rope anchors that the men had setup to repel down the side of the mountain. While the men might not have been careful to cover their tracks, they did take the time to make sure that the left behind rope could not be easily used again.

"Cut! All the rope has been cut," Kristoff said with a bit of exasperation in his voice.

As much as it pained the couple, Anna and Kristoff knew that they would have to proceed on foot without Sven and the sleigh. It would slow them down further than they were already being slowed down. But the only way to catch up with the men quickly was to repel down the side of the cliff.

"I know Sven, but there is no other way," Kristoff argued with the reindeer, "Besides you can help direct whomever Elsa sends to look for us in our direction."

Sven clearly was not convinced and began to push back on Kristoff.

"Sven, there is no way for Anna and I to get you down the side of the cliff safely," Kristoff argued in a tone that made it sound like it was his final decision.

Again Sven wasn't convinced and started to look over the cliff himself. While Sven was wondering around, Kristoff and Anna tried a new rope anchor and began to repel down the side of the cliff as quickly and slowly as they could. It would take rest of the morning and early afternoon before Kristoff and Anna finally put their feet on the ground below. When they reached the ground, they were completely started by the fact that Sven was standing in front of them waiting for the couple to reach the ground. Sven was looking at Kristoff with a very smug look on his face.

"Sven, how did you….." Kristoff began.

Anna cut him off before he could complete his question though.

"We are very glad you found a way down," Anna said, "We need to pursue those men as far as we can today and put up a camp somewhere safe for the night."

Kristoff agreed with that plan as he helped Anna onto Sven's back. Soon the couple along with the reindeer were once again on the hunt for the men.

Prince Leif was getting both angry and anxious onboard the Mjolnir. He was certain Hans was in Arendelle and was planning something against the royal family. But without the queen's permission, they could do nothing more than wait in the harbor. Maybe the queen was hoping that Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman would simply get tired of waiting and would go away. It has been nearly three days since they had met with the Queen of Arendelle. I doesn't matter thought Leif. We will still hunt Hans and we have to be ready for when he strikes. Leif then proceeded to the top deck for a breath of fresh air.

Commodore Hyman never let his guard down. While Leif didn't have much to do, Commodore Hyman was keeping very well aware of his surroundings. Besides keeping watch over the flotilla in the Arendelle harbor, Commodore Hyman kept a close eye on the activity within Arendelle. One thing that struck him was a group of homing pigeons that kept flying in an d out of Arendelle. Normally that would not have struck him as anything out of the ordinary except that the homing pigeons were not flying to the royal palace. In fact, they were flying to a location within eyeshot of the palace but not in the normal traffic patterns for palace traffic. It was almost as if whoever was using the pigeons was keeping an eye on the palace but trying to keep an extremely low profile in doing so. Commodore Hyman was beginning to have some suspicions but nothing he could take to the queen.

"Good morning Commodore," Prince Leif said as he came to top deck.

"Good morning, your highness. I hope you got a good night sleep," the Commodore answered.

"I slept just fine, thank you," Prince Leif answered, "Anything going on this morning?"

"No, nothing yet. It feels like the calm before the storm though," the Commodore answered.

Leif started to scan Arendelle for signs of activity. It was still early in the morning and people were just starting to wake up and get moving. Leif also started to scan the surrounding mountains. Arendelle was very pretty country and Leif loved looking at the mountains that surrounded the kingdom. Maybe one day he could come back to visit on better terms. But today was not that day he thought to himself. As Leif was scanning the mountains, something grabbed his attention. At first he could not make out what it was.

"Commodore, may I use your spyglass for a moment?" Leif asked.

"What do you see, your highness?" the Commodore asked as he handed the prince the spyglass.

"I am not sure yet, but I swear I see a streak of snow moving very fast towards Arendelle," the prince answered.

Prince Leif took the spyglass and started looking intensely at where he thought he saw the streak. After several minutes, he didn't see anything. At least he was about to give up and call it a fluke when something crossed directly in front of his spyglass. It would take Prince Leif several seconds before he could focus on it. Once he was able to focus on it, he saw that it appeared to be a blur of snow and it was moving very fast towards Arendelle.

"Take a look at this Commodore," Prince Leif said while handing the spyglass to the Commodore while keeping the spyglass steadily aimed at where he was looking.

It took the Commodore a few seconds to see what Leif was looking at. However the Commodore was also quickly able to see something travelling through the snow moving towards Arendelle was incredible speed.

Neither Commodore Hyman nor Prince Leif could determine what the object was before it entered Arendelle. Whatever it was it was moving fast and heading directly to the palace.

"Perhaps Hans is making his move?" Leif asked half-jokingly.

"Not his style," the Commmodore replied, "Hans like to go big."

"True," Leif replied, "I don't think he would get anywhere throwing snowballs at Arendelle."

Leif and Commodore quickly turned their attention to other matters.

Olaf was moving as quickly as he could. He had to reach Elsa as quickly as he could. Being made of snow, he was able to sled down the mountain very quickly as was able to make pretty good time.

"Wooohooo! A new record!" Olaf shouted as he slid into the courtyard of the royal palace.

Olaf started to say hi to all the horses and servants as he walked around looking for Elsa. Eventually the snowman ran into Kai.

"Oh, hi there!" Olaf said.

"Good morning Olaf. I thought you were with Princess Anna and Prince Kristoff," Kai replied.

"Have you seen Queen Elsa?" Olaf asked.

"She is preparing for a meeting with her advisors later this morning and asked to not be disturbed. Is there something I can help you with?" Kai replied.

"I have an urgent message for her," Olaf replied.

"Can it wait until this evening when he will be available?" Kai asked.

"No, it can't ," Olaf replied with some urgency.

"I will see if Queen Elsa will see you but she is extremely busy and might not have time to see you," Kai replied.

After a few minutes, Kai came back.

"Queen Elsa will take a few minutes to see you Olaf. She is in her private study. Please do not keep the queen too long. We have a pretty full schedule this morning," Kai said.

Olaf knew where to go and walked into the Queen's private study.

"Olaf! I thought you were with Anna and Kristoff at the ice palace this week," Elsa replied.

"I was," Olaf replied.

"What brings you back to Arendelle early?" Elsa asked with a hint of curiousity in her voice.

"The twins," Olaf said.

"What are going on with Colby and Sophie" asked Elsa.

"They were kidnapped this morning by a group of men who attacked us at the ice palace," Olaf spluttered out.

Elsa gasped. All of a sudden her world was turned upside down.

"Kidnapped?" Elsa gasped barely able to breathe at that point.

"The men first grabbed Colby who was trying to protect Sophie. Then Sophie screamed and Marshmallow joined the fight," Olaf said.

Olaf then took the time to explain to Elsa the nearly hour long fight outside the ice castle.

"Where is Anna and Kristoff?" Elsa asked Olaf with a sense of urgency and worry in her voice.

"They are going after the men who took the children," Olaf replied.

Of course she would Elsa thought with some annoyance. Just then Queen Elsa gasped. If Hans was back, and responsible for this, he was going to kill her sister, her brother-in-law and her niece and nephew. Elsa felt her head start to spin.

Elsa quickly called for Kai.

"Yes, your majesty," Kai replied.

"Colby and Sophie have been kidnapped by an unknown group of men and Princess Anna and Prince Kristoff are in pursuit. Alert the army and navy to the situation quickly. Cancel all meetings for next several days," Elsa said.

"Yes your majesty," Kai replied as he started to turn to leave the room and start alerting people to the situation.

"Oh and Kai," the queen said.

"Yes your majesty?" Kai replied.

"Bring me Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif immediately. I want to see them now!" Queen Elsa added.

"Yes your majesty," Kai responded as he bowed and took his leave of his queen.

Commodore Hyman was reviewing the crew of the Mjolnir for their readiness once again. With nothing else to do, the Commodore was very attentive to what the crew was doing. The crew was started to get tired of the daily inspections but no one dared complain or face a flogging from the Commodore himself. This morning Prince Leif joined in Hyman's review just to give him something to do when the messenger from the Arendelle royal palace reached the ship.

"Excuse me, Commodore," the messenger said.

The Commodore and Prince Leif quickly turned to look at who was interrupting his inspection and saw the messenger.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" the Commodore asked cordially.

"Her majesty, Queen Elsa, would like to see you and Prince Leif immediately," the messenger relayed.

"Did she say what she wants to talk to us about?" Prince Leif asked curiously.

"No, your highness, but she did say it was a matter of grave importance," the messenger replied.

Prince Leif and Commodore Hyman looked at each other with a slight sense of dread. Both men knew that something was now seriously wrong.

"Very well, lead the way then," the Commodore replied.

It would take the three men nearly 10 minutes to get from the top deck of the Mjolnir to the queen's private study. When the Commodore and Leif stepped in the study, the queen was waiting for them along with Olaf the snowman.

"Hello there," Olaf said as he stuck his wooden arm out to shake the hand of both men, "My name is Olaf."

Both men looked somewhat surprised as seeing a talking snowman in their midst.

"Yes, he is real gentlemen," the queen interjected.

"Well hello then," Prince Leif replied shaking the hand of the snowman.

"Gentlemen, Olaf was with my sister and her husband when they were attacked by a group of unknown men yesterday morning," the queen said with some concern, "During the attack, the men kidnapped my niece and nephew."

"Do we know anything about the men who attacked your sister and her family and took the children?" Commodore Hyman asked.

"They looked funny," Olaf said.

"Oh? In what way?" Queen Elsa asked.

"The men had a blue tunic, and their pants were blue and red sripes," Olaf began, "They looked very funny dressed in so much blue."

"Did these men have red fleece hats and blue shoulder straps?" Commodore Hyman asked with a great deal of interest.

"Why yes they did not that say that," Olaf answered.

"You sound like you know who these men are, Commodore," Queen Elsa and Prince Leif said in unison.

"I do," Commodore Hyman replied in a tone that nearly froze Elsa's blood.

"These men are Russian Cossacks and not just any Cossacks either," Commodore Hyman said, "These are Don Cossacks. They are the oldest establish Cossack communities and among the most loyal to the Russian Tzar, which isn't saying much given the history of the Cossacks. In order to get the Russian Cossacks involved requires a very high level of connections to the Russian Tzar to get permissions to hire the Cossacks. I can count the number of people who have that level of connections on one hand," the Commodore explained.

"Who would have those connections?" Leif asked.

"Well one of those people would be King Henriken. But he was a very close friend of your father, your majesty. I have those connections but I would never have any serious interest in hiring the Cossacks due to their mercurial nature. The next two men have not help Prince Hans as it would be an act of war against the Southern Isles and they would be squashed fairly quickly. Besides those men have no issues with Queen Else, Princess Anna and Arendelle. They would not be interested in stirring the pot either," the Commodore replied, "There is one other man who might have an interest in helping Hans but it would be of extreme risk to him. It could be construed as an act of war. In fact, I suspect that he would be loathe to take the risk and wouldn't help Hans."

"So you are saying that the Russians are attacking Arendelle?" Queen Elsa asked.

"Not necessarily your majesty," Commodore Hyman answered, " I cannot rule out the last man. He might be helping Hans and I don't know it."

"Who would that man be?" Queen Elsa said.

"That would be the archduke of Weasleton," Commodore Hyman replied.

Queen Elsa once again froze. The archduke of Weasleton had conspired with Prince Hans to have Elsa executed. She considered him as dangerous as Hans.

"There is one more thing I need to add about the Cossacks, your majesty," Commodore Hyman said.

"Go on," Elsa replied.

"The Cossacks have a love-hate relationship with royalty. While the Don Cossacks tend to be very loyal to the Tsars, they have also openly rebelled against the Tsars as well . The Cossacks have a reputation for brutality against royalty, but especially blood royalty," Commodore Hyman added.

Elsa shivered at the thought of what her sister was walking into.

"Olaf, I met with Commodore Hyman and Prince Leif about 3 days ago and sent a messenger to the ice palace to warn Anna and Kristoff. Are you sure that the messenger never got there?" Elsa asked.

"Yes Elsa. We never got any messages or saw anyone from Arendelle for the past 3 days," Olaf replied.

"Kai, you did send your best messenger, did you not?" Elsa asked.

"Yes, your majesty. I sent the very best that we have," Kai replied.

"Commodore Hyman, I give you and Prince Leif permission to hunt for Prince Hans and return him to the Southern Isles," Queen Elsa said, "Kai, I am going to leave you in charge while I try to find my sister and her husband."

"Your majesty, if I may," Prince Leif quickly interjected.

"Yes?" Queen Elsa replied with arched eyebrows.

"Commodore Nelson and I were wondering if you used homing pigeons in Arendelle," Prince Leif continued.

"No, why?" Elsa replied.

"Then someone is watching the palace," Commodore Hyman said.

"What?" Elsa exclaimed.

"We have been watching a pattern of homing pigeons. Once we left our first meeting with you, we saw a set of homing pigeons. We have noticed a regular pattern of homing pigeons coming and going to a build not too far from here but close enough to watch everything going on in the palace," Prince Leif explained.

Elsa's head was beginning to spin again.

"Your majesty, your movements are being watched. We have no idea where those pigeons are going. Before you even leave town, someone will have communicated to someone ahead that you are coming. My guess is that your messenger was killed on the way to the ice palace," Prince Leif begin added emphatically.

"What do you want me to do? Let my sister and her family die?" Elsa responded angrily.

"No, your majesty," Leif said, "Let Commodore Hyman use the flotilla to hunt down Hans and his base of operations. I will go with you to get you to your sister. It would be easier and safer to go with two people than by yourself, your majesty."

"I have no idea who you really are Prince Leif. Why should I trust you more than Prince Leif?" Elsa asked somewhat angrily but scared at the same time.

"I am afraid that I must agree with Prince Leif, your majesty," Kai interjected, "If you go by yourself, it will certainly doom all of you. It is either that or let the army and navy find Anna and Kristoff and the children and Prince Hans."

Elsa had a high confidence in her military but knew that they didn't know her sister like she did. But the time they found Anna and her family it would be too late. Elsa couldn't let that happen.

Kai's reasoning started to get through to Elsa but she still wasn't completely sure that she trusted Prince Leif. But given the circumstances she no longer felt like she had a choice.

"Very well then Prince Leif. I accept your offer then," Elsa said.

"I realize that your majesty would probably like to leave right now, but it is probably not safe for you to do so until either late this evening or early in the morning. We might be able to avoid the peering eyes if we do that," Prince Leif said.

Prince Leif was correct about her wanting to leave right away but her more reasonable mind was telling her that he was once again right. If her messenger was killed on the way to the ice palace, leaving right now would put her in the same circumstances as her messenger.

"Very well Prince Leif. Please be here by 5:00 in the morning. I would like to leave by 6:00. Kai, please make the necessary arrangements," Elsa commanded.

"Yes your majesty," Kai responded.

"Kai, I will also be leaving you in charge of the kingdom while I am away. Please work with Commodore Hyman and coordinate with the army and navy to find Prince Hans as well as the spies in Arendelle," Elsa commanded.

"As you wish your majesty," Kai responded.

"Very well. Prince Leif, I will see you in the morning. Good hunting Commodore," Else said as she got up to leave the room and get ready to leave the palace.

Whatever Hans had said about being careful with the children was clearly going unheeded by the Cossacks who were tossing Sophie and Colby around like sacks of potatoes. Shortly after the men left the ice palace the children were yelling and screaming in an attempt to be heard. However once the men reach the cliff, they gagged and bound both children and stuffed them into some very rough burlap sacks. Sophie and Colby were absolutely terrified. Neither one of them know who these men were of what they wanted. For what seemed like an eternity each child could see nothing more than what was in the burlap sack and of course the jostling wasn't helping either one of them.

Eventually the Cossacks reached the main base of operations with their burlap sacks and delivered the sacks to Viktor who was waiting for them.

"Did they give you much trouble?" Viktor asked icily.

"No, we gagged and bound them and put them in these sacks for the journey back," the other man replied.

"Do you know if Anna and her husband went back to Arendelle or are still at the ice castle?" Viktor asked.

"When we last checked, they were following us," the other man replied.

"Perfect," Viktor replied with an evil grin on his face, "Perfect indeed!"

"Well done. Get ready for the next phase," Viktor told the other man.

With that the other man turned and started additional preparations for what was to come yet. Viktor grabbed the two bags and threw both bags over his shoulders much in the same way someone would toss a bag of potatoes or beets. Both children kind of groaned from being jostled so roughly.

Hans was standing on the deck of the flag ship reviewing plans with the archduke of Weaselton and sever other men when Viktor walked up and dropped the two burlap sacks roughly on the floor of the deck. The children groaned once again from the drop. Viktor then kicked the bags over to the table where Hans was standing. Once again the men heard slight groans from the bags.

"Viktor, I want you to be careful with those children," Hans reprimanded.

"They are royal children and should suffer," Viktor replied icily.

"And they shall too," Hans shot back, "but until we are ready for the executions you will treat them gently. I don't want them to get too messed up before then."

"As you wish," Viktor replied.

Hans sighed. He knew that controlling the Cossacks was going to be difficult but he also knew that the Cossacks were extremely effective at getting dirty work done.

"Are Anna and Kristoff still at the ice palace or did they return to Arendelle yet?" Hans asked.

"According to my men, Anna and Kristoff are following our tracks," Viktor replied.

"Perfect. See archduke, I knew Anna well enough that by taking something of high value from her that she would come running," Hans grinned.

"So far, things seem to be going according to plan, Hans," the archduke replied, "How about Commodore Hyman?"

"I am working on that. My men in Arendelle are tackling that problem as we speak," Hans replied.

"Very well then," the archduke replied somewhat skeptically. The archduke knew that Commodore Hyman would be extremely tough to lose.

"Viktor, have you laid out the traps between Arendelle and the ice palace like I requested," Hans asked.

"Yes, that journey will be a fun house of pain and suffering for whomever the queen sends up to the ice palace," Viktor replied.

Hans knew in his mind that Elsa would be going personally. Just as he knew what Anna would do, he knew that the bond between sisters was incredibly strong. That bond went that Elsa was about to suffer greatly just trying to reach where Anna was and Anna would be in his clutches by the time Elsa got to the ice palace. Yes, everything was coming together just perfect Hans though.

"Viktor, take the children to the cells. You may unbind them and ungag them once they are secured in the cells. Just be careful handling them. I do not want them to suffer too much prematurely," Hans ordered.

Of course Hans didn't really care how much the children were suffering. However Hans wanted to make sure that he retained control over the Cossacks or there would significant trouble further down the road.


End file.
